SaS: State Language Act a Complete Nonsense

Bratislava, October 16 (TASR) - The State Language Act sponsored by the Culture Ministry is a complete nonsense, opposition's SaS party declared on Wednesday, adding that the plan to introduce fines for the failure to use codified Slovak properly is aimed against the ethnic-Hungarian minority and will return Slovakia back to the 1990s. "In many cases, this nationalistic and arrogant legislation has been hamstringing the rights of the Slovak citizens to freely spread and receive information in their native tongue and interferes with their freedom to run a business," Rene Parak of SaS declared at a press conference. The criticism was joined also by Zsolt Simon, the chair of the Hungarian Forum non-parliamentary party, with which SaS has formed a platform called Centre-right Bloc. In his view, the legislation will increase tension between communities. Earlier this month, the Culture Ministry announced that it will update the State Language Act with an eye towards reinforcing the standing of the state language and set up an efficient state oversight of its use. mf/mcs