Video footage surfaces of Slovak politician bragging about throwing Romani people into a river when he was younger

Jozef Mihalčin, a follower of the Slovak fascist politician Marian Kotleba, is currently serving as head of the Vranov nad Toplou district. A video has been released of him publicly describing how he used to throw Romani people into a river when he was a young man.

The video was probably produced prior to the most recent local elections and has now been posted to Facebook by the Romani politician Irena Biháriová, who is running for the Progressive Slovakia movement in this year’s parliamentary elections. “When I was 18, the Cikáni would only walk as far as the bridge here,” Mihalčin says in the video.

“If they crossed onto the bridge, I would kick them and thrown them into the Topla River. They were always filth who had no business being in our town,” he says.

In 2017 Mihalčin ran for mayor of Prešov and spoke on the public square about how to “finally solve the Romani question” in the region. “From the day I take office, we will finally solve the question of the Cikánská minority within a year and a day,” he says in the footage from that campaign.

“Simply put, I will erase them from the vocabulary of the Prešov Region. There will be nothing left of the Cikánská question,” Mihalčin says.

The Kotleba supporter can be seen inciting others to commit violence against Romani people and saying he believes the Roma are the same kind of “problem” as refugees. “Now that Cikán is just 200 meters away from my street and he’ll be in your house in a flash, he’ll take your house,” Mihalčin says in the video.