AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

“most serious crimes” under international
law.
COUNTER-TERROR AND SECURITY
Concerns remained about the Internal
Security Act (ISA) which allows the detention
of suspects without trial for indefinitely
renewable two-year periods. Fifty-eight
people were said to have been detained
under the ISA since January 2015.
RIGHTS OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL,
TRANSGENDER AND INTERSEX PEOPLE
Section 377A of the Penal Code, which
criminalizes consensual sexual relations
between men, remained. In June, the Home
Affairs Ministry called on corporate sponsors
to rescind sponsorship of the Pink Dot
festival, an annual LGBTI gathering.
1. Singapore: End harassment of peaceful protesters (ASA
36/4342/2016)
2. Singapore: Government critics, bloggers and human rights defenders
penalized for speaking out (ASA 36/4216/2016)
3. Singapore: Blogger faces up to three years in prison (ASA
36/4685/2016)
SLOVAKIA
Slovak Republic
Head of state: Andrej Kiska
Head of government: Robert Fico
Discrimination against Roma continued and
little progress was made towards realizing
Roma pupils’ right to education. Slovakia
continued to be the subject of a race
equality infringement procedure by the
European Commission.
BACKGROUND
In March, Prime Minister Fico’s party,
Direction-Social Democracy, won the
parliamentary elections, while losing its
overall majority, and formed a four-party
coalition government. The far-right party,
People’s Party – Our Slovakia, entered
Parliament for the first time with 14 seats. On
1 July, Slovakia assumed the rotating sixmonth
Presidency of the Council of the EU.
DISCRIMINATION – ROMA
Police and security forces
There was concern over the continued lack of
effective investigation and lengthy
proceedings in several cases of excessive use
of force by police against Roma. In July, the
European Court of Human Rights
(ECtHR) found that Slovakia had failed to
adequately investigate allegations of police illtreatment
of a Roma man in detention in
2010.
In August, the government announced that
the Law on Police would be amended to
move the Department of Control and
Inspection Service (SKIS) under the
Prosecutor General’s office – rather than it
being under the Ministry of Interior – in order
to increase SKIS’ independence. However, a
fully independent and transparent police
accountability mechanism was not in place at
the end of the year.
Several investigations into police illtreatment
of Roma were pending at the end
of the year. In November, the investigation by
the SKIS into the alleged excessive use of
force by police during an operation in the
Roma settlement of Vrbnica in April 2015
resulted in criminal charges being brought
against the police officer who led the raid.
However, the SKIS found that there was
insufficient evidence to charge other police
officers involved; the decision was appealed
by the Roma families in December.
SKIS’ investigation into police officers’
conduct during an operation in the Roma
settlement at Moldava nad Bodvou in June
2013 was discontinued in March 2016. The
victims, supported by the European Roma
Rights Centre and the Centre for Civil and
Human Rights, appealed against this
decision; the case was pending before the
Constitutional Court at the end of the year.
Following the Public Prosecutor’s appeal,
the acquittal of 10 police officers accused of
ill-treatment of six Roma boys at a police
station in Košice in 2009 was quashed in
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