The Culture Ministry will cut back on Pride events and education that covers LGBTI+ topics, Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová said over a year after two people were murdered outside of a gay bar in Bratislava.
“The LGBTI+ organisations [… ] will no longer parasitise on the money from the culture department. I will certainly not allow it under my leadership,” Šimkovičová wrote in the ministry’s official statement on Facebook.
The minister has said that she “rejects progressive normalisation” and that her fundamental idea of the department’s future activity is “a return to normality.”
NGO Saplinq, which Šimkovičová also attacked in her speech, views her statement as an attempt at “censorship and discrimination”.
“We are disgusted that the minister is publicly assailing a specific minority and a specific non-governmental organisation, with which the state authorities have had no problem so far,” Saplinq Director Róbert Furiel reacted.
The organisation said it has been “supplementing and replacing the state in protecting and defending the human rights of LGBTI+ people for 12 years”, and that the personal preferences of a minister cannot be the sole criterion for whether the state will support something or not.
Slovakia remains one of the most difficult places for LGBTQ+ people to live in the EU. In the 2023 study by a think tank GLOBSEC, 63% of Slovaks opposed the statement that the rights of LGBTQ+ people, such as the right to marriage, should be guaranteed.
This unresolved topic came into the spotlight after two people were murdered in front of a gay bar in Bratislava back in October 2022. The shooting was classified as a terrorist attack and an anti-LGBT hate crime.
Following the tragedy, many called for better LGBTQ+ protection. President Zuzana Čaputová noted the double murder was the result of animosity that had been “fuelled for a long time by the foolish and irresponsible statements of politicians”.
Despite all this, little has changed in Slovakia since then – LGBTQ+ rights have not been strengthened and verbal attacks remain a recurring topic amongst Slovak politicians.
(Natália Silenská | Euractiv.sk)
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