Slovenia

Since Prime Minister Janez Janša returned to power in March 2020, the ruling SDS party has embarked on a multi-pronged campaign to reshape the media landscape in favour of a pro-government narrative, renewing tactics successful during previous administrations and forging ahead with new forms of pressure.

“We believe the repeated denigration of journalists, combined with the ruling party’s attempts to exert greater control over the country’s public service media, are creating an increasingly hostile climate for critical reporting which serves a fundamental role of holding the government to account.”

“The EU has sat on the sidelines for too long. Repeated inaction to stop the undermining of media freedom and pluralism first in Hungary, and then in Poland, has allowed this model of media capture to grow and spread to other Member States. The cost of further inaction is simply too high.”

“SLAPP cases such as this one threaten independent journalism. It would be a sad irony if Necenzurirano, which in Slovenian means ‘Uncensored’, itself becomes the latest media outlet in Europe to fall victim to censorship by brazen abuse of the law”.

In the last 6 months, Prime Minister Janez Janša – who took office in March 2020 and previously governed the country on two prior occasions – has renewed long-standing grievances with the press and denigrated critical media outlets.

Rights groups appeal to the European Commission after Slovenian officials initiated a wave of threats and harassment targeting Zgaga. Ruling party supporters have since branded the journalist an “enemy of the state”.

Blaž Zgaga has been the target of a hate campaign fuelled by the government since he made an official Freedom of Information Request on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mapping Media Freedom correspondent Mitra Nazar speaks to journalist Anuska Delic about the article that almost landed her in prison for three years.

The move follows the highly publicised trial of Delo investigative journalist Anuška Delić on charges of publishing classified state intelligence after she revealed links between the Slovenian neo-Nazi group Blood and Honour and members of the Slovenian Democratic Party in a 2011 exposé.

In 2011, Anuška Delić wrote a series of articles, just before the Slovenian parliamentary elections, in which she uncovered alleged connections between the Slovenian neo-Nazi group “Blood and Honour” and members of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS).

Mitja Kunstelj, a well-known and controversial blogger was charged with defamation after posting extremely crude terms to describe details of the private lives of two journalists with whom he used to be close.

Reporter Jaka Elikan had been conducting investigations into Electa, a company owned by prominent businessman Jure Jankovic.

Courts illegally monitored telephone calls between judges and journalists, newspaper claims.

The gag order had followed articles published in the newspaper suggesting an Italian businessman’s involvement in corruption.