Following the increase of suspicious mail containing white powder or radioactive substances addressed to Government representatives, the Office for the Protection of Constitutional Officials and Diplomatic Missions, which falls under the Interior Ministry, has issued recommendations on how to proceed in the event of receiving suspect letters, Interior Ministry spokesperson Andrea Dobiášová told TASR on Tuesday. This was followed with criticism by the Opposition that the Parliamentary Office opens and reads any letters it likes which are addressed to lawmakers.
Igor Matovič, head of the Opposition party OĽaNO-NOVA, stated earlier on Tuesday that Parliamentary chair Andrej Danko (Slovak National Party) instructed employees of the Parliamentary Front Desk to open letters addressed to lawmakers if they are being sent by a person - anonymously or under a full name - and if any profanities or offensive content are found in a letter, then they are ordered not to deliver the correspondence to the lawmaker, but instead archive it for three months and then shred it. According to Matovič, this came at the direct order of Danko.
The Parliament Office refutes the claim. According to the ministry's recommendations, verifying incoming correspondence should be carried out by one person only. This person should check whether an incoming letter has missing information about the sender or refers to a non-existent post office, or whether the weight of the letter is appropriate to its content. Moreover, the employee concerned should further look for any marks made by powder, grease, stains or dust particles on a letter. "If we identify a letter that could contain an explosive, chemical or dangerous substance, we report the findings to a superior. We keep calm and avoid any psychological effects stemming from the danger. We don't touch suspect correspondence and leave the room in which it's located," reads the ministry's instructions.
Orders from head of the Parliament Office state that Front Desk employees must open every letter without a sender or from an individual that is addressed to MPs, and "letters containing profanities or offensive content aren't registered by the Front Desk, nor forwarded to their recipients, but are stored for the duration of three months and then shredded".
