Ljubljana Airport Renamed in Honour of Dissident Pucnik
The government decided on Thursday to honour dissident Joze Pucnik (1932-2003) by renaming the Ljubljana Airport Joze Pucnik Airport Ljubljana.
It is crucial that the name of Joze Pucnik be preserved in national memory, including by naming a building of national importance after him, the government said in a press release.
The airport, which is located at Brnik, will be renamed when new facilities designed to make it compatible with EU standards are inaugurated.
From 1989 Pucnik served as the head of the Slovenian Social Democratic Party (SDSS), the predecessor to the current Slovenian Democrats (SDS). In 1993 he handed the leadership to incumbent Prime Minister Janez Jansa. He retired from politics in 1997.
In the former Yugoslavia, Pucnik was a writer persecuted by the Communist authorities for his dissenting opinions. He was sentenced to nine years in prison in 1958 for propagating anti-Communist ideas.
Continually hounded by the Communist authorities, Pucnik emigrated in the late 1960s to Germany, only to return to Slovenia in the late 1980s to lead independence efforts.
He was one of the authors of the famed 57th issue of the dissident Nova revija magazine, which was released in 1987 and openly discussed Slovenia's independence.
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