President to Apologise for Injustice to Slovenia’s ‘Erased’

Slovenian President Borut Pahor on Friday will commemorate the 30th anniversary of what is known as the 'erasure', when Slovenia, after declaring independence from Yugoslavia and changing its legislation, deleted the residence permits of 25,671 citizens of former Yugoslav countries without prior warning on February 26, 1992.

"The president of the Republic of Slovenia Borut Pahor will, in the name of the state, offer a formal apology to the 'erased' for the illegal act of erasing 25,671 people from the register of permanent residents," the president's office said.

The Slovenia Peace Institute welcomed Pahor's apology, saying that so far only three politicians have apologised for the 'erasure', but that those apologies were not recorded in any official state documents and so cannot be considered as official apologies of the Slovenian state.

It said that both the Slovenian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights have established that the authorities violated the rights of the 'erased', but that "it was also necessary for the state, that is the president, to acknowledge this injustice".

The Slovenia Peace Institute also pointed out that some of the 'erased' were not compensated in any way.

"The 'erasure' left irreparable consequences in the lives of the 'erased' and those responsible were never held accountable," it added.

Amnesty International Slovenia also welcomed the president's move.

"An apology is something that Amnesty International Slovenia has advocated for many years. We believe that an apology will provide important moral satisfaction for the 'erased'," the head of the NGO, Natasa Posel, wrote on Twitter.

After the 'erasure', the documents that had been issued to people by Slovenia,...