We, the undersigned, view with concern the escalation of overtly nationalistic, anti-Hungarian actions and rhetoric by the Slovak government.

After his election in July 2006, Prime Minister Robert Fico of SMER sent an unmistakable message with his choice of coalition partners: ultra-nationalist Jan Slota of the Slovak National Party (SNS) and Vladimir Meciar of the Peoples’ Party-Movement for Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), and soon, a campaign of inflammatory anti-Hungarian rhetoric began to be heard in Slovakia. In spite of repeated warnings by the European Parliament and EU to distance himself from his partners, Mr. Fico provided tacit approval for blatantly anti-Hungarian sentiments that eventually led to violence against ethnic Hungarians.

On August 25, 2006, a Hungarian university student, Hedvig Malina, was viciously attacked by two unidentified male assailants in Nitra (Nyitra) for speaking Hungarian, her native language, in public. In the past 14 months, Ms. Hedvig has faced a legal nightmare: she, the victim, has become the accused; Mr. Fico, ignoring all legal standards, provoked public sentiment against her; and her continued prosecution has raised serious doubts about the independence of both the Slovak police and the judicial system as documented by the attached background report prepared by HHRF.

In September 2007, the Slovak Parliament passed by an overwhelming majority a resolution on the inviolability of the infamous post-Word War II Benes Decrees. In 1945, as President of the Czechoslovak Republic, Eduard Benes, had passed a series of laws which declared the collective guilt of the Germans and Hungarians living in their ancestral homeland, which had been annexed to the territory of Czechoslovakia. On the basis of these decrees, approximately 2.5 million German inhabitants were expelled, some 200,000 Hungarians were deported from South Slovakia to the Czech Lands and in 1947, about 100,000 Hungarians were transferred to Hungary. These articles of the Benes Decrees are based on right-wing totalitarian ideologies; they charge peoples and national groups with collective guilt on the basis of their ethnicity, without guaranteeing a right to self-defense.

Thus, just as elderly Hungarians gathered last month for solemn commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the inhumanities caused by the Benes Decrees, the Slovak government declared before the world that in ethnic tolerance very little progress has been made in the past 60 years. A detailed background report on the Benes Decrees prepared by HHRF is attached.

Today, the 526,000-strong historic Hungarian community of Slovakia represents 10% of the country’s population. To maintain their ethnic identity and to develop future leaders, the Hungarian Coalition Party (HCP) has worked hard to establish the Hungarian language János Selye University in Komárno. While the former Slovak government pledged to provide funding to this institution, the Fico government has not only cut back on funding, but has threatened to limit the university’s efforts to gain accreditation. Other Hungarian educational and cultural institutions have also faced such severe cuts in funds that their very existence is threatened. For example, this year the Fico government cut in half the 160 million Kr assistance to minority cultures, thereby reversing the hard-won reforms of 2005.

The undersigned organizations view with genuine alarm the above described events. Many of our members hail from the Hungarian communities of Slovakia and are particularly interested in monitoring developments there. We urge all organizations and individuals who are concerned with these recent developments to sign this statement and encourage their representatives in the US Congress to send a strong message to the Fico government to discontinue its openly negative and hostile discriminatory policies. We also request the U.S. government to use all diplomatic channels in multilateral institutions as well as in bilateral relations to persuade the Fico government to practice the democratic values of tolerance and respect for ethnic minorities in Slovakia.

Maximilian N. Teleki
President
Hungarian American Coalition

László Hámos
President
Hungarian Human Rights Foundation

Mrs. Edith K. Lauer
President
National Committee of Hungarians from Slovakia

Zsolt Szekeres
Treasurer
Hungarian American Coalition

Prof. Károly Nagy 
Co-President 
The International Association of 
Hungarian Language and Culture 

Miklós Ruszcsák
President
Hungarian Alumni Association —
Bessenyei Circle

Dr. Louis Elteto
Professor Emeritus
Portland State University

Kalman Magyar
Director
American Hungarian Folklore Centrum
Somerset, NJ

Dr. Peter Pastor
President,
Center for Hungarian Studies and Publications, Inc.

Istvan Deak
Seth Low Professor Emeritus of History
Columbia University in New York City

Prof. Klara Gyorgyey
President
Writers-In-Exile PEN Center

Magyarody Szabolcs
Corvinus Publishing

Margaret Novak Egetoe

Julius Varallyay

Zoltan Bagdy
Member of HAC and AHF

Istvan Teleki

Dr. Judith Kesserü Némethy
New York University,
American Hungarian Educators­ Association,
Hungarian Scout Association in Exteris

Jules Gyula Balogh
President & CEO
Hungarian Reformed Federation of America

Peter Kovalszki and Maria Repolski,M.D.

Edmund Lazar

Margaret Molnar Kotnik

Béla Lipták

Link: http://www.hhrf.org/hhrf/index.php?oldal=289