For the 13^th year, the Hungarian Roman Catholic community organized a day of worship in the town of Komárno/Révkomárom to draw attention to the need to create a separate Hungarian bishopric in Slovakia. At a mass held in the town’s György Klapka Square, Parish Archdeacon of Tvrdosovce/Tardoskedd, Dr. Károly Lénárd, told the congregation: the Hungarian Roman Catholic community can’t survive without its own ethnic Hungarian bishop and the education of ethnic Hungarian priests. Approximately 80 percent of ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia are Roman Catholic, comprising 10 percent of the entire Catholic population. Ján Sokol, Archbishop of Bratislava/Pozsony—Trnava/Nagyszombat, although invited, didn’t participate; instead, he chose to cerebrate mass in the town’s St. Andrew Church. While not supportive of Hungarian believers' aspiration to have their own bishopric in the past [ see report of April 17, 2001] , Archbishop Sokol had always participated in the yearly pilgrimage by the Hungarian Roman Catholic community of Slovakia. [ MTI – Hungarian Telegraph Agency (Budapest) April 21, 2002]

With a vote of 252-0, one abstention—his own—Vladimír Meciar, President of the opposition Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) was re-elected to head his party and its national congress held in Nitra/Nyitra. The 60-year old politician, who veered the country off the track towards EU and NATO integration during his 1994-98 tenure as Prime Minister, told HZDS-delegates that the party’s participation in the next government would guarantee Slovakia’s integration efforts. These pronouncements directly contradict recent declarations by NATO and EU leaders, who have raised concern over Meciar returning to power following the September 2002 elections [ see reports of February 27 and March 6, 2002] . [ MTI – Hungarian Telegraph Agency (Budapest) April 20, 2002]

In the eastern Slovak town of Kosice/Kassa, three boys aged 10-12 destroyed 135 gravestones in the old Jewish cemetery, seeking—as they claimed—gold treasures. The under-aged perpetrators can’t be held responsible in a court of law, but their parents will have to pay compensation to the Jewish community or the affected families. Zuzana Bobrikova, spokesperson for the Kosice local government said, that this act of vandalism is the most serious one against the Jewish community since the Holocaust. Similar acts took place in May 2001 in Vranov nad Toplou/Varannó and June 2001 in Levice/Léva. During World War II. 70,000 Jews from Slovakia were exterminated in concentration camps. Today, approximately 3,000 Jews live in Slovakia. [ MTI – Hungarian Telegraph Agency (Budapest) April 22 and 30, 2002]

Peter Ponicky, professor at Zilina/Zlín University and the Democratic Left Party’s (SDL) education expert was named the new Slovak Education Minister following Milan Ftacnik's resignation. Ftacnik had to relinquish his position since the SDL quit the government coalition and, according to the coalition agreement, this cabinet is assigned to SDL. Ftancik, who is now president of the newly-formed Social Democratic Alternative (SDA), played a leading role in the still unsuccessful negotiations with the Nitra/Nyitra-based Konstantín University leadership on establishing an independent Hungarian-language faculty. [ Új Szó (Bratislava/Pozsony) April 18 and 19, 2002]

According to a report released by the Slovak Interior Ministry, there are 500 active and 2,000 neo-Nazi sympathizers in Slovakia. The human rights group People Against Racism (LPO), however, challenged the report's accuracy stating that, according to their research, the number of neo-Nazis in the capital Bratislava/Pozsony alone exceeds 300, and their nationwide number tops 5,000. The LPO statement attributes the discrepancy to the fact that the Interior Ministry is not familiar with structure of these extremist groups. LPO also claims that police officers neither recognize nor know how to investigate racially-motivated crimes. [ Új Szó (Bratislava/Pozsony) April 15, 2002]