Slovak far right extremists want to demonstrate on November 17

Supporters of the far right Slovak Community (Slovenska pospolitost) civic association again plan, like last year, to stage a demonstration in the centre of Bratislava on November 17, the group said on its website today.

The authorities of the Bratislava-Stare Mesto neighbourhood will decide on whether it will dissolve the demonstration directly on the spot, its spokeswoman Alena Koprivova told CTK today.

The demonstration was organised and officially announced by the same people who organised the last year’s meeting that was finally banned.

Regardless of the ban, clashes between young people many of whom are members of the Slovak Community, that was banned as a political party and therefore operates as civic association, took place in Bratislava last year.

Koprivova said that representatives of the authorities would monitor the meeting and would dissolve it if its course contradicted the goals the organisers have declared.

A wide public discussion on far right extremists has recently again started in Slovakia. The People against Racism civic association criticised the Slovak police for their allegedly insufficient activity against the perpetrators of several racially-motivated attacks.

Four other organisations want to organise events in Bratislava-Stare Mesto on November 17, Koprivova said.
For instance, the extra-parliamentary Civic Conservative Party has planned a meeting of protest against the current Slovak government of Prime Minister Robert Fico.

November 17 is a national holiday, Day of Struggle for Freedom and Democracy, and it is celebrated in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic as the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution that ended the communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia.
A tough police action against students on November 17, 1989, triggered the events that resulted in the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia was divided into independent the Czech Republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993.