Budapest, November 8 - We hate you, Slovakia", "Slovaks, you have no homeland", or "Down with Trianon" - were the slogans chanted by the crowd of more than 1000 fans of various Hungarian football clubs in Budapest.

A demonstration in front of the Office of Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany was organised by football fans to protest against police crackdown at Slovakia's football premier league 'Extraliga' match in Dunajska Streda on November 1.

The event was monitored by hundreds of policemen, including riot policemen and police dog handlers. Police surrounded the site of the protest by metal barriers.

During the protest, a group of people verbally attacked the staff of state-owned Slovak Television. Police recommended that both cameraman and reporter leave the site of the demonstration before its end, and finally they accompanied them to their car.

The speakers at the protest said that the police crackdown in Dunajska Streda was unacceptable, and they expressed sharp disapproval with anti-Hungarian manifestations and acts of the Slovak Government. At the same time they criticised Hungarian Government headed by Ferenc Gyurcsany, because, they said, it doesn't take care of the Hungarian nation, i.e. also of Hungarians living abroad.

The organisers of the protest read a petition, in which they called on the Hungarian Government to condemn "unsubstantiated and brutal attack against Hungarians in Dunajska Streda and to do its best to give satisfaction to those who were attacked in Slovakia, and to do its best to secure that Hungarian nation is not humiliated". At the end of the event they handed in the petition to a representative of the Hungarian Government.

In this connection Hungarian media recall that there were also Hungarian police observers who didn't see the fans at the stadium in Dunajska Streda carrying out any activity that could justify the crackdown of their Slovak colleagues.

According to Budapest Police Command (BRFK), the demonstration was announced on time.

(TASR)

Photo: Hungarian football fans protest in Budapest against police crackdown at Slovak football premier league match in Dunajska Streda. (TASR)