Commentary
Politics
EU Should Enlarge, Even Out of Despair – COMMENTARY
3 October 2024
The terrorist attack last month in Bratislava has not materialised into political benefits for either the LGBTQ+ groups or the far-right nationalists. Elections this past Saturday showed the largest gains for independents in the country’s first combination of regional and local ballots.
The finish of the campaign for this year’s local elections in Slovakia was marked by strong emotions, which were triggered by a terrorist attack against LGBTQ+ individuals in Bratislava. However, the powerful reaction of the public and politicians supporting the LGBTQ+ community did not result in a political game-changer.
On Wednesday, 12 October 2022, shortly after 7 p.m., an attack took place in front of the Tepláreň club in Bratislava’s Old Town, killing two people and wounding another. Due to the circumstances of the crime, the prosecutor’s office classified the incident as an act of terrorism. The choice of location was not accidental: the target was a club popular with LGBTQ+ people.
The victims were the twenty-seven-year-old, non-binary Juraj Vankulič and Matúš Horváth, a twenty-three-year-old sinology student at the capital’s Comenius University, who identified as bisexual and had been working as a waiter at the bar for a month. A female bartender present at the establishment was also injured in the attack.