Photo: courtesy of Nova24TV
When the Polish police raided the headquarters of TVP World to close down the media outlet, many pointed out that such images did not belong in the democratic European Union. However, just a few months later, the same thing has happened in Slovenia.
Yesterday, on May 29th, police entered the headquarters of the conservative media outlet Nova24TV and searched the private home of its director, Boris Tomašič. For Venezuelan opposition activist Alejandro Peña Esclusa, a connoisseur of Slovenian politics, “the behaviour of the Slovenian government resembles that of Caribbean dictatorships, which is not surprising since one of the parties in the governing coalition, Levica, has close ties to the Venezuelan regime. The clearly illegal raid is reminiscent of the measures taken 20 years ago by Hugo Chávez to shut down Venezuela’s leading independent television station.”
But what are they saying about this in Brussels? As in the Polish case, where Donald Tusk’s government has received Europe’s blessing despite purging the conservative media, Brussels’ double standards are scandalous. During the previous centre-right government, with a coalition government led by Janez Janša’s Democratic Party (SDS), Brussels took Slovenia to task for its “authoritarianism.” NGOs, the media, and, in particular, Věra Jourová, European Commission vice-president and commissioner for values, strongly raised concerns about the ‘Orbanisation’ of the Slovenian government and the lack of press freedom in the Balkan country, prompting a European Parliament monitoring mission to investigate whether the ‘rule of law’ was at risk. Janša himself denounced this campaign, noting that “the European Commission should stay out of political battles.“
However, all of the European Commission’s pressing concerns disappeared in April 2022, with the victory of Robert Golob’s Freedom Movement, which won the government with the support of the Left. One of Golob’s pre-election promises was to destroy the right-wing media, which he called “evil factories,” he also threatened anyone who advertised in the right-wing media and promised to “liberate” national television.
First of all, they “liberated” national television by changing legislation and bypassing agreed conventions (very similar to what is happening now in Poland). The Constitutional Court initially suspended the law, but, ten days later, changed its mind after Věra Jourová met with the president of the court and allowed Golob’s government to take full control of national television. All non-left-wing journalists were dismissed with the resounding silence of the Slovenian Journalists’ Association and international journalistic associations.
On the other hand, the National Assembly set up a commission of enquiry made up of “independent” journalists, i.e. left-wing activists, and left-wing MPs to investigate possible illegal party financing (Janez Janša’s SDS) and media financing, but only of conservative media (Nova24TV and Demokracija magazine). Again, the fact that a government decided to investigate the opposition, its ideological adversaries, did not set off any alarm bells in Brussels.
The result of their investigation, predictably, was that the right-wing media had been illegally financed, and they also accused the SDS of covert financing. The commission questioned all the managers of the right-wing media, several mayors of municipalities and owners of private companies that commissioned advertisements in the media. According to journalist Bogdan Sajovic, “the accusations are absurd, for example, one mayor was accused of publishing an advertisement in the right-wing media on the occasion of a municipal holiday, and another because his municipality ordered three copies of the magazine Demokracija … The commission is behaving in a totally Stalinist manner and has even gone so far as to request the magazine’s subscriber lists.”
Yesterday’s events are the result of the investigation into the state-owned company Telekom for allegedly financing Nova24TV. This investigation against Telekom and some of its directors has led to the raid on Nova24 and the search of the home of its director, Boris Tomašič, even though he was not yet a director at the time of the investigation.
For Sajovic, “the whole investigation is practically bordering on illegality, and is basically an attempt to smear and intimidate Nova24 and its director during the pre-election period.” Mojca Kocjančič, the judge who ordered the search, is well known for her left-wing views.
Another journalist who knows well the persecution of conservative media is Jože Biščak, president of the Slovenian Association of Patriotic Journalists and former editor of Demokracija. In September 2022, Biščak was convicted for publishing a satirical article against illegal immigration by Alexander Škorc in the magazine Demokracija. “I was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and two years’ probation for alleged defamation of immigrants, and the author to five months’ imprisonment and two years’ probation. It is a paradox that I received a longer sentence than the author. This shows that the target of the trial was Demokracija magazine.”
In his opinion, the attack on the Slovenian conservative media is a consequence of the fact that the left-wing elite, which controls more than 80% of the media, is convinced that its opinion is the only one that counts. “Any deviation from their point of view is labelled xenophobia, racism or any other phobia”.
The raid against Nova24 comes amid the European election campaign, but in addition to the threat it poses to the conservative media, is it also a rabid reaction on the part of a Left that according to all the polls will suffer a serious defeat? Janez Janša answers this question in the affirmative: “Yes, Golob has already lost half of its popular support in less than two years. Realistically, the parties in the governing coalition will only be able to win three of Slovenia’s nine seats”.
The likely defeat of Golob’s coalition is good news, but we must not let our guard down in the face of this dangerous authoritarian drift that is becoming increasingly common. The persecution of dissident media and attacks on freedom of expression are no longer the exclusive preserve of autocracies, and are now being allowed to run rampant through the hypocritical double standards of the Brussels institutions. This is one more reason, not least, why a change of course is so necessary in the forthcoming European elections. Let us hope that Slovenia will be one of the axes of that change.