Country’s hard-right culture minister Martina Šimkovičová accused of ‘complete lies’ after removal of respected figures

When Slovakia’s minister for culture fired the director of the country’s oldest and most important theatre last Tuesday, the numerous reasons she cited for her surprise move included “political activism”, an alleged preference for foreign over Slovak opera singers, and, bizarrely, an incident with a crystal chandelier.

Matej Drlička, whose dismissal from the Slovak National Theatre was followed a day later by that of the director of the Slovak National Gallery, says the real reason is something else: a concerted crackdown on freedom of artistic expression and a systematic assault on the central European republic’s state institutions under the watch of the populist prime minister Robert Fico.