STA, 24 November 2019 - Slovenian police appear to have stepped up activities against a self-styled militia that says it wants to protect the border from migrants. In an encounter Saturday near Krško, a group of officers confiscated seven pieces of weapons from 41 members of a militia known as the Štajerska Guard.
The weapons will be sent for analysis and the individual will be prosecuted if they are found to have broken the law. The encounter was also reported to the prosecution but the prosecutor did not detect elements of criminal activity, said the head of the border department at the Novo Mesto police, Anton Štubljar.
The encounter comes days after the government said it was in the process of changing legislation to be able to tackle the activities of groups such as the Štajerska Guard, a paramilitary formation led by Andrej Šiško, who has already served prison time for trying to subvert the constitutional order.
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In recent weeks the group has spent weekends at camps along the border, patrolling the border area in fatigues and carrying weapons that its members says are replicas.
While their activities have raised concern about the possibility of violent altercations with migrants, they cannot be prosecuted under existing law since nothing they do is technically illegal.
The legislative changes under consideration, strongly opposed by politicians on the right who see the militia as a harmless attempt by citizens to protect themselves, would make it illegal for such groups to present themselves as a type of a military structure trying to imitate the actions of the police or the army.
Štubljar said police support changes that would make it possible to "effectively detect and prevent such deviations, which constitute a security threat".
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