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Monday, December 2, 2024
11:00-12:00 AM ET
Online, in English
Gábor Czímer, journalist and educator in Slovakia, has over a decade of investigative reporting experience with an emphasis on corruption, government accountability and international affairs. Since 2020, he has been the only domestic journalist exposing the ethnic-based land confiscations through analysis of government statistics and access to first-hand sources. Czímer is on the editorial board of Új Szó, the Hungarian-language daily in Slovakia, serving the country’s 462,000-strong Hungarian minority. As such, he brings an in-depth understanding of the political, socio-cultural and civil society context prevailing in the country.
The Live Q&A with HHRF executive director Emese Latkóczy will explore in detail how and why the Slovak state is able to perpetuate this egregious human rights violation. Don’t miss this crucial discussion and opportunity to ask your questions!
The Hungarian Human Rights Foundation is a grassroots, independent NGO formed in New York in 1976 to monitor the human rights of 2 million ethnic Hungarians who live as minorities in East Central Europe.
See the 2007 Letter on Beneš Decrees from Chairman Tom Lantos of the US Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs to Slovak Prime Minister Fico.
From a March 12, 2022 article in Foreign Policy
“Imagine that, one day, government representatives knock on your door and claim ownership of the land you inherited from your grandfather, saying it should have been confiscated from him immediately after World War II. The government representative explains that, for some procedural reason, the confiscation was not duly implemented in the 1940s, so the state is now correcting this omission.
This may sound preposterous, but it is the reality ethnic Hungarians and Germans in Slovakia face today through the retroactive application of World War II-era laws called the Beneš Decrees. The Beneš Decrees permit the seizure of private property of individuals belonging to these ethnic groups, and they are being increasingly abused by the Slovak government to expropriate land. It is an unjust practice that has no place in a democratic society in 21st-century Europe and merits the attention and outrage of the international community.”
