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Extremists Try to Distrupt Unveiling of President Masaryk's Statue
Thursday 28 Octtber 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, October 28 (TASR) - The statue of the first Czechoslovak president Tomas Garrigue Masaryk was unveiled in front of Slovak National Museum in Bratislava on Thursday to commemorate the first Czechoslovak Republic of 1918-1939.
The original bronze statue of a lion was removed to a different square to make place for the two-metre Masaryk statue, which was ceremoniously unveiled in presence of several MPs, diplomats and representatives of public and regional administration.
Some 20 members of the extremist Our Slovakia party came to protest against the unveiling, considering it treasonous and a crime to have the statue of an "avowed enemy of the Slovak nation" standing in the centre of the Slovak capital. According to them, such "filth" cannot be tolerated and so they initiated a petition for removing it. However, they failed to announce their protest in advance, which gave police the upper hand in keeping the affair civil.
Nonetheless, there were some nationalist extremists attempting to disrupt the proceedings with boos and verbal protests. However, no serious incident took place.
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