Ombudsman has criticized Slovenes for being narrow-minded and intolerant when it comes to marginal groups such as battered women, drug addicts or disabled. Visiting Maribor on Tuesday [4 May], Matjaz Hanzek pointed to the problem of a planned refuge for mothers at a village near Maribor and other instances of local communities opposing various groups that need help.

"Some events indicate that we care little about other people. Moreover, that the citizens of Slovenia are egotists who do not let anybody in our vicinity who could disturb our daily self-satisfied lives," Hanzek told the press after visiting Maribor to learn about the problems faced by the locals.

The ombudsman also noted that this was the problem of the whole Slovenia, rather than Maribor alone, and said that such behaviour was intolerable.

"Instead of removing the barriers dividing people, we create new ones, we atomize the society into small isolated groups that cannot communicate among each other," Hanzek said and appealed to everybody not to erect new borders within the country at the time when the borders between countries are falling.

 
SOURCE: Slovenian Press Agency (STA), 5. 5. 2004