Slovak News Back to the news
SNS Plans Gathering in Komarno, Jobbik Too; Police Ready to Step In
Tuesday 01 June 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Komarno, June 1 (TASR) - According to nationalist SNS chairman Jan Slota, on Friday, June 4 – the day of the 90th anniversary of signing the Treaty of Trianon – supporters of Hungarian extremist party Jobbik will meet in Komarno to protest against the treaty that changed the borders of central Europe.
However, SNS will also come to Komarno to install a Trianon memorial, Slota informed at a news conference on Tuesday. They plan to put the memorial on the Slovak-Hungarian border. "To show the Hungarian nation where the Trianon border is. By being present there, we want to show that Komarno is a Slovak town," explained Slota.
According to information obtained by TASR, members of the civic organisation Tukor are going to meet in Komarno on Friday and they plan to unveil a memorial column there to mark the occasion. Unofficial sources also speak about Hungarian protesters meeting at the statue of St. Stephen [the statue was the source of friction last year when Hungarian President Laszlo Solymon was refused entry to Slovakia when he wanted to attend the unveiling - ed. note], but no such plans have yet been officially confirmed by Jobbik.
However, police are counting on this eventuality. Spokesperson of the Regional Police in Nitra Renata Cuhakova said that the police have not been informed that there should be another event taking place along with that announced by SNS. "We're ready to take measures to secure public order in the town," she said.
Nonetheless, representatives of the municipality of Komarno said SNS has not yet been granted permission to march across the town, due to formal shortcomings in the request they submitted.
The SNS event is being co-organised by cultural heritage organisation Matica Slovenska, but its local branch dissociates itself from it, saying they haven't been informed about the event to date. "It's an activity of our headquarters, we don't want to have anything in common with it. We avoid politically-oriented events. We're a cultural institution," said chairman of Matica Slovenska in Komarno Jozef Cernek.
[Komarno is the Slovak half of what prior to WWI was one city called Komarom, which is what the Hungarian part on the south side of the Danube River is called. - ed. note]
All rights reserved. Any publishing or further dissemination of press releases and photographs from TASR's resources without TASR's prior written approval constitutes a violation of the Copyrights Act.
