Slovak Far-Right Politician Criminally Charged for Donating 1,488 Euros to Kids Charity

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Jul. 31, 2017

The leader of Slovakia's People's Party-Our Slovakia, Marian Kotleba, has been charged with "extremism" for the crime of donating 1,488 Euros to a charity for disabled children.

From Reuters:

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - The leader of Slovakia's far-right People's Party-Our Slovakia has been charged with extremism for "sympathizing with a movement aiming to suppress basic rights and freedoms", police said on Friday.

Authorities announced the charges against Marian Kotleba - originally brought last week - in a one-sentence statement that provided no further details. He faces up to three years in jail if convicted.

Local media reported that the charges are related to pictures the People's Party posted online in March. Those pictures showed an enlarged copy of a check donated to a charity for disabled children -- for 1,488 euros.

The numbers supposedly carry a white-supremacist and pro-Nazi message. The 14 refers to the 14 words in a slogan used by white supremacists: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." The 88 is short for "Heil Hitler" -- "H" is the eighth letter of the alphabet.

This is the first I've heard of someone being criminally charged for a "racist" donation.

Evidently, since the party won 14 seats in the Slovak Parliament last year "in an electoral shock," the left-wing establishment parties have been doing all they can to throw the new lawmakers in prison.

Two of the party's lawmakers are already facing charges for hate speech against Roma, Jews and Muslims. Prosecutors took steps in May to ban the entire party, saying it posed a threat to Slovakia's democratic system.

...."The police have adopted double standards in treating the Prime Minister and the opposition," Kotleba told journalists on Friday, pointing to an earlier statement by [Left-wing PM Robert] Fico that "Hitler had a good economic program".

Nothing says "democracy" like throwing people in prison for their speech.

Follow InformationLiberation on Twitter and Facebook.