Vatican City, Oct 22, 2010 / 13:09 pm
Pope Benedict XVI said he is pleased with recent efforts by Slovenia to address the problem of the “erased.”
In declaring independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, the new Slovenian government “erased” from its citizenship roles the names of tens of thousands of non-ethnic Slovenes who had been living in its territory for years. The move left as many as 25,000 without any basic rights to employment or residency.
Human rights advocates have for nearly 20 years decried the erasure and Slovenia’s apparent unwillingness to correct the injustice as "administrative genocide" and “civic death.”
In an Oct. 22 address to Slovenia’s new Vatican ambassador Maja Marija Lovrencic Svetek, the Pope referred to a recent law that would allow the “erased” to apply for citizenship.