Slovak police register fewer extremist marches, concerts - ROMEA - www.romea.cz

Slovak police registered fewer actions of far-right groups promoting racism, Nazism and national intolerance, a Slovak Police Presidium officer specialising in racially motivated crime told CTK today. "We register a decrease in classical manifestations of right- wing extremism, but new forms of promotion appear more often, such as on the Internet," the officer said. "The occurrence of various extremist marches, meetings or concerts has more or less fallen low as the police launched an offensive against them in the past several years," he said. A number of members of skinhead and neo-Nazi groups thus stopped to wear symbols of their movements. (...) Milo said that part of the Slovenska pospolitost (SP; Slovak community) organisation got registered as a political party called SP-national party. SP members are known in Slovakia particularly for their marches in black uniforms resembling those of the police of the Nazi-sponsored Slovak state. The SP openly defends the controversial state and its president Jozef Tiso. Milo said it seems that the organisation has increased the number of its supporters since more and more people have taken part in its actions in the past several years. According to the police, several hundreds of active far-right activists and several thousands of supporters to extremist movements operate in Slovakia. Most of them live in the Bratislava region, west Slovakia. Police registered 79 racially motivated crimes last year, compared to 119 cases in 2003 and more than 100 in 2002. Moreover, no murders or cases of heavy bodily harm caused by far- right extremists were registered last year.