The environment for human rights defenders, though rarely favourable in Slovakia, is getting worse.
Pressure against NGOs has only mounted since Robert Fico’s government re-gained power in 2023, making no disguise of its intention to target what it deems to be “political” NGOs.
In a policy statement the government went so far as to say that it “cannot accept that politically-motivated entities often funded from abroad influence democratic political competition in a non-transparent manner”.
Inspired by the harmful NGO laws being introduced in a few other countries in the region that are clamping downs on civil society, the Slovak government quickly followed suit and proposed its own so-called foreign agents law – its name was later changed to the amendment to the act on non-profit organisations – due to public outcry.
Deemed by human rights groups as a way to control, stigmatise and crush their activities, it was pronounced as unconstitutional by the Slovak Constitutional Court in December 2025, which ruled that it infringed on the right to privacy of supporters and placed unreasonable administrative burdens for NGOs that can lead to or even constitute harassment.
