Psychiatrists Appeal to Mečiar

BRATISLAVA (SITA) - Participants in the 3rd Slovak Psychiatrist Assembly, in an open letter, appealed to Slovak Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar to quit politics on his own and for the public good on Friday. "Concerns over the erasure democracy do not allow us to keep silent," the experts on mental health wrote. "We have been observing with anxiety the way you handle power. We do not have a right to release any psychiatric diagnosis on your person; however, we feel it as our duty to comment on your behavior in politics and your public presence. You demonstrate a great deal of intolerance, authoritarian tendencies, and perversion of the truth, and you disseminate lies and hatred. You fed an image in your followers that the bad part of Slovakia is your enemy that has to be silenced," reads the letter signed by Doctor Jozef Hasto, Professor Anton Heretik, and Professor Vladimír Novotný on Friday. The Slovak Psychiatric Society vice chairman said that almost 90 percent of the 270 candidates voted for sending the open letter. The psychiatrists claim that Mečiar creates a political atmosphere that separates Slovak citizens and that the level of aggressiveness is rising. "We once again feel shame because of our political representatives much like during the times of former Communist boss Gustáv Husák. We want to believe that in this key historical situation you will make the right decision," the psychiatrists wrote.