The annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 2017 by the US State Department criticizes Slovakia. According to it, the most significant human rights issues in Slovakia last year included incidents of interference with privacy, corruption, widespread discrimination against Roma, and security force violence against ethnic and racial minorities. The US State Dept noted that Slovakia's Government had investigated reports of abuse by members of the security forces and other state bodies, although some observers questioned the thoroughness of these investigations. The report mentions that two former cabinet ministers - Igor Štefanov and Marian Janušek - were convicted of corruption in public procurement in the course of the year. However, according to it, high-level officials were rarely prosecuted for corruption, despite a series of high-profile corruption cases, claims the report.
The report also comments on libel/slander laws. "While courts did not impose criminal penalties for defamation, financial elites targeted the press in a number of civil defamation lawsuits, which often required the press to pay out large sums of money."
The US State department also points at the former PM Robert Fico calling the media "dirty anti-Slovak prostitutes" in November 2016 when the Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Miroslav Lajčák faced criticism that his ministry had allegedly manipulated the public procurement of services related to the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the EU.
"Media and NGOs criticised the Special Prosecutor Dušan Kováčik, whose office has the lead role in prosecuting public corruption cases, for not filing any charges in the 61 corruption cases he has supervised over the past eight years," stresses the report.
In reaction to numerous scandals, Slovakia has a reconstructed government since March and the names of the new Interior Minister as well as the President of the Police Corps should be announced soon. However, as Viktor Stromček, General Manager of the largest governing SMER-SD party said "even if the main governing party Smer-SD nominated an angel as interior minister, it still would be lambasted from all sides."
According to the US State Department, discrimination in society against Roma and individuals of non-European ethnicity was common in Slovakia in 2017. Despite these communities being subjected to controversial police raids, the police also generally responded quickly to gatherings targeting the Roma and prevented crowds from entering these settlements or inciting confrontations.
"Currently, in many fields of Roma integration we are suffering the consequences of the mistakes which the state has been making in recent decades," said Government Plenipotentiary for Roma community Ábel Ravasz in 2016, who also criticized some of the police raids, such as the one in the village of Zborov in 2017, which according to him, was failed and chaotic.
