BUDAPEST, (Reuters):

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany condemned an increase in "atrocities" against ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia on Saturday after a girl was beaten and robbed in a Slovak town.

Gyurcsany called a press conference after the ethnic Hungarian girl was attacked in Nitra, western Slovakia, on Friday after being overheard speaking Hungarian on her mobile phone.

The attackers forced her to take off her shirt and wrote "Hungarians go back to the other side of the Danube" on it.

Rise in atrocities

Gyurcsany called on Slovak premier Robert Fico to condemn what he said was rising xenophobic and anti-Hungarian rhetoric in neighbouring Slovakia, and a series of "atrocities".

"The policy of silence must be finished. It is not enough to distance (himself from the events), Prime Minister Fico must clearly condemn all that has happened in the past months and what happened yesterday," Gyurcsany said.