Slovakia and Hungary are finding it difficult to overcome historical grudges, lately due to disagreements on how to handle extremism on the Slovak side.

Hedviga Malinova claimed she was assaulted for speaking her native Hungarian in August 2006, months after socialist Prime Minister Robert Fico's arrival to power in an alliance with populist and extreme-right forces.

The police investigation concluded the student had fabricated the story, and she was later accused of giving false evidence, a crime that carries up to five years in prison.

The minority governing Slovak National Party (SNS) went as far as claiming the student's incident was stage-managed by Hungarian political forces in Slovakia and abroad.

However, in May the man who had filed a criminal complaint against the student committed suicide, and a month later another man, claiming to know one of the attackers, came forward to declare the student had really been beaten up.

The student says she gave her statement under sedatives, in the presence of strangers and under pressure and threats, but her appeal against charges brought against her, and her accusation that the Slovak judiciary is responsible for several procedural violations, have so far gone unheeded.

By late July police officials began admitting the student could have indeed been victim of a physical attack, with police president Jan Packa arguing the incident still hadn't happened "they way she described it."

Yet in September 2006 interior minister Robert Kalinak had explained the halting of the criminal prosecution on the basis that there was "no doubt that the incident did not occur."

Kalinak is not the only politician who compromised his position. On Aug. 21 former police investigator Jozef Satek filed a complain against Fico, Kalinak and Packa over abuse of public office in the student's case. The officials are accused of having accessed and released information on the investigation file to put pressure on law enforcement agencies.

The Slovak premier faces another five criminal complaints in relation to the investigation, but Fico has argued the case was designed to bring down his government, and has threatened to sue his opponents for slander.

On Sep. 13 Slovak General Prosecutor Dobroslav Trnka admitted mistakes had been made during the investigation and promised to make things right.

Human rights groups had for months insisted Malinova's case was rigged with procedural violations, but Lubomir Kopecek, a political scientist at Masaryk University in Brno, argues the case has been complicated by the fact that it represents "another typical struggle between Hungarians and Slovaks."

"It is a very symbolic question, the main reason why it is out there is because the student is Hungarian," he told IPS.

Hungarian political forces, in a rare display of unanimity, have been calling for fair trial, and Budapest has insisted on its criticism of Fico's alliance with extremist forces.

Slovakia has reacted harshly, and accused Hungary of questioning its legal independence and of grossly interfering in Slovak internal affairs. The recent appearance of an extreme-right paramilitary group in Hungary has also given Bratislava the opportunity to criticise Budapest for its bad handling of extremism.

In an attempt to clear the air after a year of tension, Fico and Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány met in June for the first time, and pragmatism prevailed as the countries discussed the construction of roads and bridges. Hungary is Slovakia's fifth most important economic partner, and the sixth largest investor in Slovakia.

Tensions, however, failed to evaporate. A Jul. 14 attempt at starting an ethnic Hungarian civic association promoting debate around autonomy soon encountered legal problems.

Dusan Caplovic, deputy prime minister in charge of minority issues, termed the group "irredentist", and the Slovak interior ministry denied it registration on the grounds that it was of a political nature.

Autonomy has been a longstanding demand of the Hungarian community. The SMK has said it favours opening a debate on various forms of self-determination, but no other topic is as explosive in Slovakia.

Slovakia has a historical Hungarian minority of 500,000 people, about 10 percent of the country's population, and the Slovak public is mostly suspicious of claims of autonomy by the community, seeing in them a first step towards annexation of Southern Slovakia by Hungary.

The association's actions led Fico to state he wished Slovakia to be a home "for the Slovak nation and loyal minorities", a statement which was quickly condemned not only by representatives of the Hungarian community, but by those of the German and Roma communities.

This did not deter Fico from announcing on Aug. 3 that he would require the knowledge of Slovak language in all official communications in Slovak territory, a step which contradicts the European Charter for Minority Languages of which Slovakia is a signatory.

Fico also rejected a proposal by the Hungarian Coalition Party of Slovakia, which suggested that both the Hungarian and Slovak parliament would mutually apologise for past wrongs.

Slovak and Hungarian historiography clash over past events. Most Slovaks resent past Hungarian domination over its territory whereas Hungarians tend to condemn Slovaks for their treatment of an ethnic Hungarian minority that has been under Slovak jurisdiction for most of the 20th century.

"The relationships are cold, and the presence of extremist forces in the cabinet doesn't help," Kopecek told IPS. "But they are both EU members and strongly antagonistic relationships are no longer possible. We'll have to wait a couple of years to see what government changes might bring." (END/2007)