When fear becomes politics, it undermines the rule of law — and Slovenia’s reaction to the killing of Aleš Šutar has become a warning for Europe.
When fear replaces reason, democracy begins to fracture. Slovenia’s response to the killing of Aleš Šutar in Novo Mesto has shown how quickly justice can yield to anger – and how a state’s search for control can corrode its own foundations. What began as a criminal case has become a mirror held up to Europe, revealing that when fear becomes politics, it does not govern; it dismantles the rule of law.
A man has been killed, and a country has lost its balance. The death of Aleš Šutar should have remained in the hands of the courts. Instead, it migrated to the streets. Within hours, the suspect’s Roma identity replaced evidence as the headline. Television hosts competed for outrage, ministers performed accountability by resigning, and crowds chanted “Enough to Gypsy Violence.”
A criminal case became national theatre. Grief became a script. Fear became politics. For Roma, this story is not new. Each time power trembles, it looks for a familiar target. In 1942, Roma from Dolenjska were deported to the camps of Rab and Gonars – almost all were killed. In 2006, the Strojan family was driven from Ambrus while police “kept order.” In 2009, Silvo Hudorović was beaten to death; in 2019, a Roma home was burned; in 2022, teenagers were attacked in Murska Sobota. Every decade leaves a scar and a silence.
Fear is cheap politics. It costs less than reform and buys more airtime than competence. Novo Mesto, the epicenter of this unrest, lies in a region where Roma presence predates the State that doubts it. Records from the fifteenth century describe Roma traders and craftsmen around its markets, connecting towns long before Slovenia had borders. From these same valleys, in 1942, nearly every Roma was deported to fascist camps. Few returned. Their descendants rebuilt the same economy that now excludes them.
When Yugoslavia collapsed, the Roma – who had built its factories and repaired its roads – became citizens of borders that no longer wanted them. Slovenia entered Europe with democratic ambition and anxiety over identity. It turned that anxiety into administration. Three national “Roma inclusion” plans since 2010 have promised equality while institutionalizing surveillance. Roma settlements are listed as “security risks.” Budgets for inclusion run through police and welfare offices. Equality is managed like a threat.
Just days before the killing, Slovenia was hosting the MED9 Summit under its EU presidency – presenting itself as progressive, innovative, and inclusive. Ursula von der Leyen and King Abdullah II praised its diplomacy of openness. A week later, its streets filled with chants of hate and violence. The contrast is not contradiction — it is choreography. Cosmopolitanism for export, scapegoating for home use.
In a Europe where Roma outnumber Slovenians six to one, Slovenia’s treatment of its Roma citizens cannot be dismissed as provincial. It mirrors a continental habit: governing insecurity by projecting it onto those least protected.
Fear in Slovenia is not spontaneous. It is managed like a budget line. Politicians deploy it to unite a divided electorate; bureaucracies translate it into project proposals; media sell it every night at prime time. Fear produces data – polls, ratings, funding. It fuels a small-state economy where outrage is cheaper than reform.
Brussels helps sustain it. For two decades, the EU has measured “inclusion” in meetings, not in safety. Reports close the moral account without changing the political balance. A system built to promote equality has turned into one that subsidizes its absence.
Behind every headline there is a home. In Žabjak, a woman nails plywood over her windows. In Brezje, a boy deletes his photo from social media. Parents keep children home; elders hear echoes of other nights when silence came before violence.
The State no longer needs decrees to isolate Roma – uncertainty does the work for it. Yet within that uncertainty lies the Roma’s oldest skill: rebuilding. Each time Europe tries to erase them, they reassemble community from what remains. Endurance is not resignation; it is knowledge – the civic literacy that Europe lost while Roma learned to survive its failures.
Justice for Aleš Šutar and safety for Roma are not rival claims. They are the same measure of Slovenia’s stability. Justice requires evidence, not emotion. Safety demands equal protection, not collective blame. When law becomes selective, authority becomes temporary.
If Slovenia is to return to the foundations on which its democracy was built – and to the commitments it made upon joining the European Union – several things must happen. The killing of Aleš Šutar must be investigated fully and impartially, free from political interference and ethnic prejudice. The government must publicly denounce the hate speech and collective blame directed at Roma and reaffirm that equality before the law is not negotiable. The safety of Roma must be guaranteed through visible and effective protection wherever threats or intimidation occur. Independent oversight by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights and the Council of Europe’s Commission against Racism and Intolerance should accompany this process, ensuring that Slovenia’s institutions act in accordance with their obligations under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. And finally, accountability must extend across all levels of governance: public officials who have normalized hostility or failed to prevent its spread must face political and legal responsibility. These are not extraordinary measures – they are the minimum conditions of credibility for any member state that claims to uphold the rule of law in Europe.
The Roma have lived on Slovenian soil for six centuries, surviving fascism, socialism, and transition. They have mastered what states never do: how to endure collapse without reproducing it. Survival of Roma is not folklore but political memory – proof that law matters only when it is shared. If Europe wants to rediscover what civilization means, it should start by learning from those it has most neglected. Power lasts not through control, but through care.
Slovenia now stands between performance and principle. It can keep governing through fear, or it can rebuild legitimacy through law. Justice for Aleš must be full and fair, and protection for Roma equally real. These are not parallel paths — they are the same road back to democracy. States do not collapse by invasion; they erode from within, when trust between citizens and law disappears. That erosion already has a face – the Roma – who have carried the weight of Europe’s unkept promises and yet remain its most enduring proof of resilience. Their safety will decide whether Slovenia — and Europe with it — still remember what it means to be civilized.
By Mensur Haliti, Founder of the Roma for Democracy Foundation
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