"These statements regarding the relationship between Slovakia and Hungary go beyond all limits of normality and decency," said György Gyimesi (OĽANO), member of parliament, at a press conference on Monday afternoon, which he called in connection with anti-Hungarian and anti-Hungarian articles published in the Slovak press.  

Gyimesi said that the much-discussed American-Slovak defense agreement (DCA agreement) also brought another problem to the surface for the Slovaks,

"which is nothing but the incredible fear of us Hungarians"

He said that it all started with the SME daily article "Imagine that Hungary attacks Slovakia", written by commentator Samuel Marec.

However, the ominous article created new ones. Gyimesi said that in one of the videos on Aktuality.sk, it was talked about how the joint defense agreement with America is a great thing, because what would happen if the Hungarians tried to separate Rimaszombat from Slovakia, because in that case the Americans and the other NATO member states would protect us.

“[The editor] just forgot that Hungary is also a NATO member state and a member of the EU. And as Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok also said, Slovak-Hungarian relations have never been so good."

- said the representative, and then stated that the authors of the articles are creating fear with a Hungarian invasion of Slovakia.

On Friday, another article was published, this time in the conservative daily Postoj. This article, with the subtitle "Orbán and Putin want a border change", made some rather steep claims, also in the context of an opinion piece (can be read in Hungarian translation here.).

Liberal commentators adopting Ján Slota's rhetoric  

"These statements are reminiscent of the 90s, this is the rhetoric of Ján Slota and his successors, and these words, sentences and thoughts are from the darkest period in the shared history of the two nations"

said Gyimesi, and drew attention to the fact that these articles were not published in the columns of the Zem a Vek or Hlavné sparva conspiracy portals, but in the Slovak mainstream press. Roughly 2-2.5 million people read these portals.

"These are opinion-forming dailies that should pay close attention to what they write. Instead of inciting the majority nation against Hungary for completely out of thin air and extremely stupid reasons, they should rather work to maintain good relations. On behalf of all Hungarians, I distance myself from such statements and call on the editors-in-chief of SME, Aktuality.sk and Postoj to distance themselves from the words of the commentators and to apologize to the Hungarians in Slovakia.

he added.

They could have written about Austria as well  

He emphasized that this kind of mood-raising is extremely dangerous in the current period. There is inflation, an epidemic, an energy crisis.

"Especially in this period, I consider it extremely low and unacceptable that writings appear that incite Slovaks against Hungarians, that instill fear towards Hungarians and Hungary. These articles do not even comply with normal journalistic ethics"

he said. As an argument, he also raised the question why the relevant commentators did not write the same about Austria, considering that the territory of today's Slovakia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy for a long time.

According to him, there can be two reasons behind this. One is that

these journalists are afraid of the Hungarians. The other possibility is that they "contribute to the fight of the liberals and the Brussels mainstream against Viktor Orbán, which can also be interpreted as interference in the Hungarian elections"

highlighted.

Media attack regarding the DCA contract  

Responding to Körkép.sk's question, he said that what had happened

"they look like an organized media attack, there is no other way to explain that the authors are inspired by each other, but I don't think this is likely."

he said, adding that he did not understand why the inciting articles were published in connection with the American-Slovakian defense agreement, since, according to him, the majority of Hungarians in Slovakia agree with the DCA agreement.

We asked if he felt that politicians would also try to ride the wave started by journalists, to which Gyimesi replied that he hoped not.

"In OĽANO, we undertook to support national minorities, and we succeeded. I would like to believe that none of us will join this wave, because it is vile, stupid and completely baseless”

- He told.

Source: Körkép.sk

Photo: TASR/AP recording