Court in Slovenia bans Tito road name

Josip Broz Tito

LJUBLJANA, (Reuters) – The Slovenian Constitutional Court said yesterday it had banned the city of Ljubljana from  naming a road after Yugoslav dictator Josip Broz Tito because  his name was a symbol of the communist regime that violated  human rights.

“The name of Tito does not only symbolise liberation of  Slovenia from the fascist occupation in World War Two … but is  also a symbol of the totalitarian communist regime which was  marked by vast and rough violations of human rights and basic  freedoms,” the court said.

Josip Broz Tito

Ljubljana, ruled by centre-left mayor Zoran Jankovic, named  the road in the capital in 2009, saying Tito was an important  historical figure. The conservative New Slovenia party asked the  Constitutional Court to overturn the move, saying Tito’s regime  had violated human rights.

City authorities gave no immediate comment after the court’s  ruling yesterday.

Tito was leader of the former Yugoslavia from 1945 until his  death in 1980 and many roads were named after him in Slovenia  before it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Most  were renamed after independence.