2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs

The Slovak–Hungarian diplomatic affairs of 2006 were a series of ethnic and diplomatic affairs between Slovakia and Hungary.

The situation escalated further after the parliamentary elections in June 2006, after which the party of the Hungarian minority SMK was not invited into the new government coalition. After a series of bitter comments from both sides, a short movie presumably depicting a group of Slovak nationalists instigating against the Hungarian minority by burning the Hungarian flag appeared on YouTube.com, which at the day, when it has been announced, it has been removed from YouTube due to terms of use violation. A day later, anti-Slovak graffiti appeared on Slovakia's embassy in Budapest.

In August 2006 in a few days time the following incidents were reported: In Komárno a man was severely beaten because he spoke Hungarian on the street. In the smaller towns of southern Slovakia a woman was allegedly harassed by the hospital staff because of the same reason. This was reported from Nové Zámky, Šaľa and Veľký Krtíš. In Nové Zámky a graffiti saying "Hungarians (should go) to the other side of Danube" appeared on a Hungarian family house. In Bratislava, the statue of Sándor Petőfi, the popular Hungarian poet (of Slovakian origin), was damaged on August 24, which has happened many times in the past decades. According to Béla Bugár, a politician of the SMK, such incidents weren’t typical in the past 8 years (when his SMK was in the government), and the Slovak government has to take seriously the worsening ethnic tensions.

After these incidents another film was uploaded to the Internet, which was made in April at a Slovakian second division football match between Slovan and Dunajská Streda, showing a Kingdom of Hungary map for some seconds, then it was creased and savaged, then started hailing Jan Slota and shouted "101% anti-Hungarian", "Slovakia is the Slovak's" and several fascist slogans. The attempt by the Hungarian diplomacy to delete it from the Internet was successful, but soon Slovak football fans protested against local Hungarians in Bratislava(Pozsony) with slogans: "Fucking Hungarians go home!" . After that there was an anti-Slovak protest as a response by football fans in Budapest (they said "Fucking Slovakia", "Slovaks, you will always remain our slaves", "Slota must die" ), six protesters were arrested. On August 25 an ethnic Hungarian female university student called Hedvig Malina was severely beaten and the statements "SK (probably means Slovakia) without parasites!", "Hungarians to the other side of the Danube!" was written on her clothes in the town of Nitra. On September 12, the police concluded that this was a staged attack what the girl denied. According to Új Szó, some pictures and more evidence was found and attempted to pass to the local police about the incident, but they refused to take them.

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