Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico faces criticism from the opposition after he did not react to an attack on a group of Slovaks living in Serbia.
The incident took place in Bački Petrovac, where the largest Slovak minority lives in Serbia, when a photo exhibition about the months-long anti-government protests in Serbia was destroyed, Politiko reminds.
The violence later escalated into physical attacks on the organizers by supporters of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.
The exhibition was organized as part of the Slovak National Festival
The leader of the opposition liberal party Progressive Slovakia (PS), Michal Šimečka, visited Bački Petrovac and accused Fitz's government of failing to protect the rights of the minorities of its compatriots.
"Slovaks in Serbia feel completely abandoned, at the mercy of local hooligans and thugs. No one helps them, no one from our government came to their defense, called the Serbian ambassador, nothing," Šimečka wrote angrily on Facebook.
He called on Fitz and Foreign Affairs Minister Juraj Blanar to "act immediately".
At a press conference on Friday, Fico harshly criticized Šimečka for interfering in Serbia's internal political affairs and accused the opposition of trying to organize similar protests in Slovakia.
"The internal matter, which is an exclusively sovereign issue of Serbia, has become a perfect opportunity for our opposition politicians to, on the one hand, support the Serbian opposition and, at the same time, try to import this 'Majdanization' that we already see in Serbia into Slovakia," Fico said, as reported by Politiko.
The Slovak leader also stated that he had no knowledge of violations of minority rights in Serbia and ended by attacking journalists, whom he said hate sovereign governments like those in Serbia or Slovakia.
In Bački Petrovac, on August 9, members of the SNS and club members, together with the municipality's leadership, tore up the photos on the exhibition, which showed protests in support of students in the past eight months.
The Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, stated that the events in Bački Petrovac during the Slovak national festivities are an internal matter of Serbia and have nothing to do with the status of the Slovak national minority in Serbia.
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