Pre-election anti-terrorist campaign in Slovakia

In the beginning of December 2015, Slovakia’s parliament amended the constitution and adopted a package of anti-terrorist laws vesting the police, the law enforcement agencies and the judiciary with more powers. For example, under the new regulations the police can detain a person suspected of terrorism for 96 hours, and a court may put such a person on remand for up to five years. The constitutional amendments were backed by Smer-SD, the ruling left-wing party led by Prime Minister Robert Fico and the opposition Most-Hid party linked with the Hungarian minority. Slovakia firmly resisted the EU’s migration policy and warned against terrorists hiding among the migrants. It was also insisting that the European Council’s September vote on migration quotas be annulled, and brought a complaint to this effect to the Court of Justice of the European Union on 2 December 2015. The government announced that Slovakia would not accept migrants in accordance with the quotas set during the European Council’s vote, and instead on 11 December 2015 brought over 149 Christians from Iraq, who would remain in Slovakia.