Shaes, insults, threats against journalists in Slovenia

Slovenian journalists who disagree with their government are facing Twitter or Facebook days with insults, insults, and even death threats. This is also true of public television stars. If not enough of these threats, the prime minister gave reporters a powerful blow: “Under the auspices of the extreme left, RTV Slovenija has become a central driver of hatred and threats”. According to him, Slovenian public television is part of a “ominous group” that threatens “and life” during the coronary pandemic.

Nowhere in Europe is the struggle for crisis measures for the Coronavirus developing as strong as in Slovenia. The new prime minister, Janez Jansa, has only six weeks in office and is trying to use the moment to further expand his power. The epidemic is a unique opportunity to do this: the enemy is the virus, and anyone who criticizes the government is linked to the virus. Even appointments and evacuations from office to public television are justified with a state of emergency. In normal times, the chances of such changes would be slim. Janša leads a weak three-party coalition. With its nationalist right-wing intentions and authoritarian governance, the 61-year-old doesn't even have a majority in government, let alone a population.

As soon as it became known that investigative journalist Blaz Zgaga was awarded the Freedom of Word Award (Freedom of Speed Award) by Deutsche Welle, he was hit in social media with a Russian-style attack. The fact that Zgaga received the prize is evidence that no one knows Slovenian at Deutsche Welle” B.C. A government party deputy. Hundreds of trolls from false accounts are insulting these days “the false warnings directed by George Soros”.

The main source of the campaigns is private Nova24 radio station, founded five years ago under the US FoxNews model to break the hegemony of liberal media. Nova24 attacks refugees, homosexuals and Roma and is financed by Jansa's SDS party, which is close to Orban. In mid-March, Nova24 chief Ales Hoys, one of the most thirsty twitterists, became interior minister in the SDS-led government.

Blaz Zgaga is a hated figure for the Jansa camp after discovering a scandal for buying Finnish tanks more than ten years ago. His expertise was indisputable: with a radio colleague, he published three volumes on arms smuggling at the time of the Yugoslavia Wars a standard work with more than 1,300 pages precisely investigated. Since then, former editor-in-chief of the Maribor newspaper “Vecer” has written mainly for foreign media, including “Spiegel” and “Guardian”. In his writings, not only has Jansan and his camp been taken up by former President Milan Kukan, who was involved in an arms dealer. When the journalist writes about corruption in supply of breathing devices early in April, Prime Minister Jansa personally attacked him an illegal act for democratic governments. Zbga “chews his lies for decades”, the prime minister wrote on Twitter.

In an interview with the DW, Zgagaga said he lives in double isolation: “on one side because of the coronary, on the other because of the threats I received. For some time, I dared to leave the apartment only at 11x1>. He is aware that politics is sometimes aimed at intimidating journalists and avoiding criticism of the state. “We all have to live in fear, the goal is a dictatorship of fear”, the investigative journalist said. / DW/