Thousands of people protest against Slovak PM in Bratislava – photo

Thousands took to the streets in the Slovak capital Bratislava on Friday, 3 December in protest at Prime Minister Robert Fico's foreign policy actions.

Source: Aktuality, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Around 4,000 people braved freezing weather to express their dissatisfaction with Fico's pro-Russian policy.

"Slovakia, beware, the occupation has begun" the protest organisers declared in one of their slogans. One banner read: "Fico, go to Moscow, leave Slovakia in peace."

The organisers handed out placards to the protesters that were designed by the artist Rudolf Sikora, with "Betrayal" written on one side and the slogan "We are Europe" on the other.

The protesters waved the flags of the European Union and Slovakia. The EU anthem was also played, with the organisers emphasising that "this is our anthem".

Sikora stressed the need for civil society to join forces with the opposition. "I'm begging you, opposition politicians, pull yourselves together," he said, adding that it was necessary to unite against evil.

"We aren’t Russia’s doormat," speakers at the protest told Robert Fico's government, adding that the prime minister wants to hand Slovakia over to Russia. "We’re not Russia," the organisers and the crowd chanted.

Background:

• For two weeks after Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s visit to Moscow on 22 December, there was no official information about his whereabouts. It later emerged that he was staying in a luxury hotel in Vietnam.
• Fico’s latest video, in which he criticised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was filmed in a room at the luxury Capella Hanoi hotel in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.
• Fico had sharply criticised Ukraine for stopping the transit of Russian gas and written a letter to EU leaders expressing dissatisfaction with Ukraine’s actions and threatening to cut off electricity supplies.

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