Early Saturday evening, university students organized a demonstration against the new Slovak law protecting the Beneš decrees. According to the telex.hu server, a group of protesting students gathered in front of the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Budapest, reports TASR correspondent in Budapest.
The main organizer of the event, law student Illés Katona, said about the demonstration announced on Facebook in the invitation that several students will give speeches. The chairman of the non-parliamentary opposition party TISZA, Péter Magyar, also announced his participation on Facebook, and several opposition politicians also appeared in the crowd, according to telex.hu.
Criticism of the Slovak law
The server said police had set up metal barriers in front of the darkened embassy building, but there were not many officers at the site of the protest rally.
“It has never happened that Hungarians living in Slovakia have been sent to prison for telling the truth,” said history student Attila Gabris in his opening speech.
According to the amendment to the criminal law, which came into effect at the end of December, anyone who publicly questions the post-war arrangement, which deprived thousands of Hungarians of their property and citizenship, can be sentenced to six months in prison, index.hu wrote on Friday.
Sharp reactions to the law
Slovak President Peter Pellegrini signed the amendment before Christmas. Among other things, it establishes the criminal offense of questioning the post-war Beneš decrees. It was published on December 27 and took immediate effect. Since its adoption, the law has caused discontent among the Hungarian minority in Slovakia and has provoked sharp criticism from Hungarian political figures as well, added index.hu.
Members of the European Parliament (EP) for the TISZA party proposed on December 18 that the EP oppose this Slovak law. However, according to Magyar, this initiative was blocked by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz government party.
With the support of Orbán’s “friend”
Magyar stated that Orbán’s “friend” Prime Minister Robert Fico enforced the law in Slovakia. The proposal of the TISZA party could have enabled the Union to examine violations of minority rights and compliance with the principles of the rule of law in Slovakia. On December 29, the chairman of the TISZA party announced on Facebook that he would expel the Slovak ambassador from Hungary because of this law. According to him, if Slovakia does not comply with EU law, if there are laws that collectively punish members of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, if they confiscate their land or threaten them with prison based on these laws, then the ambassador of Slovakia has no place in Hungary.
“From the point of view of the Hungarian legal order, it (the law) cannot be interpreted. Hungarian law does not recognize the concept of ‘denial or questioning’. Only in the case of the Holocaust does the concept of denial exist, but that concerns the fact. The fact that the Beneš decrees exist is not disputed by anyone. It is being discussed whether it is good that they exist, whether they should remain in this form, or whether they can be changed,” Orbán said on this issue before the December EU summit.
