Slovakia: Chair of local party cell has swastika tattoo, national chair denies neo-Nazi associations

Denník N, a daily newspaper in Slovakia, has published an article about the ties between Rastislav Jakubík, a local chair of the cell of the “People’s Party Our Slovakia” and the country’s neo-Nazi scene. Despite the fact that the national chair, Marian Kotleba, still refuses to admit to the public that his party is associated with neo-Nazis, this reporting demonstrates the opposite is the case.

Jakubík, who unsuccessfully ran in 2017 to become a representative in the Nitra Regional Self-Administration and also ran in 2018 to become a member of the municipal assembly in Levice, is captured in many photographs in the company of other neo-Nazis, and one photograph shows a tattoo on his chest of an enormous Nazi Iron Cross, a version of the German military medal with a small Nazi swastika in the center. In some of the photographs he is wearing a t-shirt with name of Cirhoza 88, a neo-Nazi band in Slovakia.

The symbolism of the number 88 is well-known on the neo-Nazi scene – the letter “H” is the eighth in the alphabet, so “88” stands for “HH”, which stands for the Nazi greeting “Heil Hitler”. Jakubík is depicted in another photograph embracing a man giving the Nazi salute.