Hungarian American Coalition News, 2009 (17. évfolyam, 1. szám)

2009 / 1. szám

Hungarian

American

Coalition

THE SLOVAK LAW ON THE STATE LANGUAGE

The current edition of the Newsletter is entirely devoted to the recently adopted amendments to the Slovak Language Law, which entered into force on September 1, 2009. We include the Coalition’s statement on the language law and a summary of selected legal opinions on key aspects of the law. The analyses are the

following:

Remarks on the Opinion of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities,

issued in June, 2009.................................................................................................................... Page 3

Analysis of the obligations of natural persons, and the scope for their supervision and

sanctioning, in the amended Slovak law...................................................................................... Page 5

Analysis of the positive discrimination towards the Czech language................................................ Page 5

Rights and obligations of citizens....................................................................................................... Page 6

Language Use among the Hungarian Minority of Slovakia in Light of the Monitoring Report of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages - Summary of a lecture given by Dr. Péter Kovács, Professor of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University, at the University of Pécs on October 10, 2008....................................................................................... Page 6

COALITION PARTICIPATES AT MASS PROTEST DEMONSTRATION IN DUNASZERDAHELY

On September 1, 2009, two board members of the Hungarian American Coalition (Coalition), Mrs. Edith K. Lauer and Zsolt Szekeres, attended the demonstration at the DAC stadium in Dunaszerdahely (Dunajská Streda), Slovakia.

An estimated 12,000 people - mostly Hungarians from Slovakia, but also from Hungary, Romania, Austria, Canada and the United States participated in the peaceful demonstration organized by the Hungarian Coalition Party (MKP) and several civic organizations, to protest the recently passed Slovak Language Law which came into force that very day. The organizers invited Coalition Chair Emeritus, Edith Lauer, to speak about Coalition efforts to inform U.S. decision-makers about the restrictive and

discriminative aspects of the Language Law. The full text of Mrs. Lauer’s speech can be read on page 3.

Percentage of ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia