Since the attempted assassination of the prime minister, the far right has wasted no time in silencing its critics

Last Friday, I was sitting on the terrace of the cafe of the Slovakian parliament talking to an opposition MP about the government’s assault on independent media. The previous afternoon a law had been passed that puts the public broadcaster, RTVS, under the direct control of the Ministry of Culture.

“It’s part of a cycle. That’s what’s so scary,” Dana Kleinert of Progressive Slovakia told me, pointing also to the abolition of a special prosecutor’s office looking at political corruption and plans to curb public protests. “How far can they go? The answer is as far as they want.” She also noted the withdrawal of funding for LGBTQ+ groups, and the closure of a museum considered to be “putting the future of children in Slovakia in jeopardy”.

John Kampfner is the author of In Search of Berlin, Blair’s Wars and Why the Germans Do It Better