An attempt to criminalize collective memory

I am deeply disturbed by the consequences of Saturday’s events in Austria, where heavily armed Austrian special units – without having a court order and without any prior warning – stormed a symbolic site of remembrance. Uniformed forces, helicopters, drones, long-barrelled weapons and police dogs were deployed against the descendants of victims of Nazi violence, against students, lecturers, and workshop organisers who, as they do every year, had gathered to pay solemn tribute to those who fell in the fight against fascism.

The official justification for this excessive and wholly disproportionate use of force was alleged breaches related to camping and environmental protection. Yet the true motives behind this display of brutality were anything but environmental – and this was clear to all. This was an attempt to criminalise historical remembrance; an attempt to silence those who, with dignity, preserve the spirit of resistance of the Slovenian people in a place that stands among the most powerful symbols of anti-fascist struggle on Austrian soil.

In this painful irony, it is especially absurd that those who peacefully and respectfully honoured the memory of past atrocities are now accused of indecent conduct, while the actions of those who carried out this raid inevitably recalled that tragic April eighty years ago, when Nazi units, at this very site, murdered eleven members of the Carinthian Slovene community.

Tragically, Saturday’s events are not an isolated incident targeting the Slovene community in Austria, but rather a manifestation of an increasingly troubling attitude of the Austrian authorities – both at federal and local level – towards this national community. The systematic undermining of Article 7 of the Austrian State Treaty – above all through the deliberate neglect of the right to use the Slovene language in bilingual areas, reductions in funding for minorities, symbolic appropriation of Slovene territory, and now repression against the guardians of the anti-fascist legacy – all signal a worrying departure from European values.

From Austria – as a member of the European Union and as a signatory of the Austrian State Treaty, which underpins its post-war sovereignty and obligations, without which post-war Austria could not have been established – I expect the full and credible implementation of Article 7. This means ensuring the linguistic, cultural, and political rights of the Slovene national community, guaranteeing its equal treatment, and creating the conditions for respectful and dignified coexistence with the majority population.

I therefore fully join the Slovenian Government’s call for a thorough, independent, and transparent investigation into this incident, for the identification of any abuse of power, and for appropriate accountability of all those involved. I also expect clear assurances from the Austrian authorities that such actions will never again be repeated – neither at the Peršman Farm, nor anywhere else.