Tag: media freedom

Brussels Greenlights Contentious Media Sale in Central Europe

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The European Commission on Wednesday approved the sale of Central European Media Enterprises, CME, to the PPF Group conglomerate, whose owner, the Czech Republic’s richest businessman, Peter Kellner, has been accused of acting as a proxy for China.

The CME, majority owned by AT&T, operates 30 television channels in five Central and East European markets.

Civil society groups earlier warned that the sale could boost China’s influence on the TV sector in Central and Eastern European countries where both groups are present. Concerns have also been raised over potential market concentration.

The EU executive body dismissed these objections, however. “Based on its market investigation, the Commission found that the transaction, as notified, would not impact the companies’ position in these markets,” a statement on its website said. 

“PPF and CME are both active in the acquisition of sports broadcasting rights in Czechia and Slovakia and in the sale of advertising space in Czechia,” the statement added. “In parallel, the two companies are active at different levels of the TV value chain,” it continued.

“CME is mainly active as a wholesale supplier of TV channels in a number of Member States, while PPF offers retail audio-visual and telecommunications services in Bulgaria, Czechia and Slovakia,” it asserted.

These elements pose no real risk to fair competition, the Commission went on, as “the companies generally do not compete for the acquisition of the same sports rights and the transaction would only lead to a limited increase in PPF’s existing share of the market.

“Similarly, PPF’s activities represent a negligible share and would not add significantly to CME’s position in the market for the sale of advertising space in Czechia.”

The sale will give Kellner’s group control over leading private television stations now owned by CME in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia. CME’s main channel in Slovakia, Markiza TV, is widely considered a rare independent television station in the country.

PPF has already interests in the audiovisual and telecommunications sectors in some of these countries.

The deal was signed in October last year. A PPF representative said on Wednesday that the group expected the purchase to be finalised on October 13.

Last February, US Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a known China hawk, urged the US authorities to launch “a full review of the national security implications” of the sale.

Rubio insisted that the deal would advance “the Chinese Communist Party’s political interference” in the countries where CME operates.

If the sale to PPF went ahead, Rubio observed, Kellner’s group would control of channels with a massive audience of 97 million people only in Romania and Bulgaria, where CME owns rating market leaders Pro TV and b1.

China in July announced retaliatory sanctions on Rubio, fellow Republican Senator Ted Cruz and other US officials for their harsh criticism of its policies.

Kellner has often been accused of serving China’s interests in Czechia, where his PPF group has its base. These services are said to include whitewashing Beijing’s record through a paid propaganda campaign in the Czech media.

Governments Continue to Undermine Right to Information Under Cover of COVID-19

Posted on by BIRD

The coronavirus pandemic has had a chilling effect on people’s right to information in Central and Southeast Europe, with many countries adopting legal measures which temporarily altered or even suspended obligations regarding the public’s right to information.

Thankfully, many of these measures have since lapsed with the end of the states of emergency and lockdowns, though there are other pieces of legislation in the works that could hinder people’s right to information.

On the annual International Day for Universal Access to Information, BIRN has released data showing dramatic drops in responses to freedom of information (FOI) requests by official bodies, either in time or in their entirety. BIRN keeps track of its FOI requests and produces reports on the topic, because the information gleaned from these requests enables it to produce investigative pieces and expose wrongdoing by governments, companies and powerful individuals.

“In a world where COVID-19 has caused chaos and complexity, access to reliable and verified information is more important than ever… As these last few months have shown, public health requires transparency – whether this means statistics on the scale of the pandemic, or data on public spending. Access to accurate and trustworthy information ensures accountability for actions undertaken in response to the challenges caused by the virus, as the global community works to ‘build back better’,” Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO, wrote on the occasion of the International Day for Universal Access to Information.

Since the beginning of the year, the data shows that BIRN journalists have sent at least 366 FOI requests to various public institutions in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Turkey. So far, just 123 requests, or 33.6 per cent, have been answered, either fully or partially, while the remainder are either rejected or still not answered.

By comparison, between January 2017 and June 2019, BIRN journalists submitted 854 official requests to access public documents in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia, with slightly under half (408) approved; 224 were partially approved, meaning the institutions provided only technical information; and 221 requests were either rejected or no answer at all was received, despite repeated follow-ups from the journalists.

At the time, BIRN concluded that while FOI laws in the region are among the most liberal in Europe on paper, implementation of these laws is well below European standards – a situation that has deteriorated with the spread of the pandemic.

Public institutions that so far have been most likely to answer FOI requests are the Trade Ministry and prosecutors’ offices (Serbia), the Judicial Council (North Macedonia), the Kosovo Judicial Council and local municipalities (Kosovo).

BIRN also tests the transparency of public institutions by analysing their compliance with the Open Government Partnership (OGP), an initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from national and subnational governments to promote open government, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. So far, four Balkan states have joined the OGP: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia.

Some of the commitments each state proposed in their Action Plans are related to: open data, anti-corruption, public procurement, developing e-governance, adopting laws to support transparency of public institutions etc. But despite their promise to be more transparent and open, these countries are still struggling to meet the commitments.

Albania, the oldest OGP member since 2011, has been shifting the OGP leadership from one institution to another, thus failing to fully implement its own commitments: fiscal transparency, public services, access to information, public administration and anti-corruption.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, which joined OGP in 2014, has not moved a step forward in fulfilling the commitments. Independent published reports note no improvement.

Montenegro, which joined in 2012, is still facing difficulties on internal leadership to deal with OGP and track the developments of the already committed institutions.

Serbia, which joined the partnership in 2013, has the highest number of set commitments. From a total of 14, it failed to develop an IT system to support e-governance, and failed to implement proposed amendments to the laws that were supposed to improve governmental transparency.

All four countries have failed in becoming more transparent and digitally accessible. Publishing the latest updates on their websites, such as financial reports, ministry meetings minutes, or other current and important public documents, seems like too long a process to be ever fully implemented.

COVID measures

Citing the fight against COVID-19, authorities in a number of Central and Southeast European countries extended the amount of time that state bodies had to respond to FOI requests, which media watchdogs warned at the time was part of a worrying crackdown on press freedom since the onset of the pandemic.

“We are concerned that in some cases, the suspension or delay of FOI deadlines is being used to hinder media access to information and thereby shield the government from domestic scrutiny or criticism over its handling of the outbreak,” warned Scott Griffen, deputy director of the International Press Institute (IPI).

Among those countries extending and suspending deadlines for FOI requests were Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia, while Poland passed a law suspending the activity of courts that would rule on issues related to FOI requests.

Most of these laws have since been revoked as the states of emergency and lockdown ended, however experts are warning about other legislation in the pipeline that could have a similar detrimental effect on the right to information.

In Poland, for example, legislation has been proposed by MPs from the ruling party that would exempt officials from punishment for breaking the law if they did so as part of efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

The World Health Organization advises that, instead of absolving of liability, it is important to, among other things, produce conditions for better public oversight of the various public decisions made during the pandemic.

“This… recommendation could be implemented by facilitating access to public information via digitising, obliging institutions to proactively publish information online, shortening dates for information access etc… Yet the current government is not making access to public information easier, but complicating it further on the pretext of battling the pandemic,” Grzegorz Makowski, an expert at the Batory Foundation’s ideaForum, wrote.

In Montenegro, the government has been criticised for pressing ahead during the pandemic with proposed amendments to the Montenegrin Law on Free Access to Information that have raised serious concern among experts, who say that the majority of the proposed changes would have a negative effect and take Montenegro further away from international transparency standards.

RFE Launches in Hungary as Problems Mount at Home

Posted on by BIRD

On September 8, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) trumpeted its return to Hungary after a 27-year hiatus, marking its third re-entry into an EU member state following the 2019 resumption of services in Bulgaria and Romania. With the news media in much of Central and Southeast Europe being subsumed by governments or oligarchs, RFE/RL’s refocus on countries where media pluralism is under threat is, for those who value a free press, a welcome development.

Yet just two days after the Hungary relaunch, RFE/RL’s recently ousted President and CEO Jamie Fly was warning in testimony to Congress that the independence of RFE/RL is itself under threat from a source much closer to home.

“I would urge Congress to make the private grantees RFE/RL, Radio Free Asia (RFA), and Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) even more independent of the U.S. government. The politicization of their oversight agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, and the undermining of their corporate boards through the actions of the new CEO of the Agency will only serve to raise questions about their independence and their ability to continue to speak truth to power,” Fly said in his testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, Energy, and the Environment on September 10.

The new CEO of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) – the independent body that oversees RFE/RL and the other US-funded media programs such as Voice of America (VOA) – is Michael Pack, a Donald Trump appointee, whose right-wing credentials include being a former president of the conservative Claremont Institute (Motto: Recovering the American Idea), as well as a close associate of Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, with whom he has made documentary films.

Pack’s appointment to head up the USAGM was by no means straightforward. His nomination for the post was stalled in Congress for over two years as neither Democrats nor Republicans seemed particularly enthused by the candidate.

Then a White House attack on VOA in April in a statement under the headline, “Amid a pandemic, Voice of America spends your money to promote foreign propaganda”, in which it accused the outlet of uncritically relaying Chinese propaganda about its efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, seemed to galvanise Republicans and his confirmation sailed through the Senate largely along party lines on June 4.

Pack up your things and leave

The impact of Pack’s appointment was immediate. Within two weeks, VOA’s director, Amanda Bennett, and her deputy Sandy Sugawara had resigned, swiftly followed by the firing of the heads of RFE/RL and four other grantee and federal organisations under his remit, including Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

This prompted a bipartisan group of senators to write an open letter to Pack warning that the sackings, “without any consultation with Congress, let alone notification, raise serious questions about the future of the USAGM under your leadership.”

For RFE/RL insiders, both past and present, the decision by Pack to replace the bosses of the independent grantees with interim heads promoted from within the organisations is instructive, suggesting that he lacks a masterplan and is putting these organisations “on ice”, possibly until after the November 3 presidential election.

Rather, the focus of Pack so far seems to be on VOA, whose editorial mission – unlike that of the grantees, which are concerned with objective reporting within the countries where they operate – is more about communicating America’s story to a foreign audience, primarily through the coverage of US politics, policy and actions.

This is something Pack, and President Trump, clearly believe got lost during the years of the previous Obama administration. Explaining his own filmmaking to a confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2019, Pack said: “Our films tell America’s story – also one of the goals of international broadcasting. The stories we’ve told range from history to politics to culture.”

One of the first editorial changes at VOA since his appointment has been restoring the daily VOA editorials to all its services – something which had lapsed over the last few years. The editorials are crafted by USAGM officials and then cleared by the State Department.

However, insiders believe that more wide-scale changes at all the organisations are likely if Trump wins the presidential election. RFE/RL’s editorial content, like that of the other organisations, is protected from US government interference by federal law. However, few doubt that Trump, who has shown scant regard for observing democratic norms during his time in office, will find ways for his man in charge to slant the coverage in a more favourable political direction, perhaps using leverage points, such as funding or appointing heads with the same world view, that would not violate the statutory firewall.

For example, one former insider says that were Pack to apply the VOA mission of “telling America’s story and explaining its policies and ideals” to the independent grantee organisations like RFE/RL, that would represent “a significant shift in their role”, which until now has often been explaining to their audiences – more than 38 million people in 23 countries, in the case of RFE/RL – what is going on in their own societies.

Impossible job

Insiders say all this sends a terrible signal at a time when, according to the US-based democracy monitor Freedom House’s latest Nations In Transit report, a growing number of leaders in Europe and Eurasia have dropped even the pretence of playing by the rules of democracy, while openly attacking democratic institutions and the press.

The most worrying situation is in Hungary, where RFE/RL’s new Szabad Európa service on various digital platforms intends, in its own words, to “provide objective, fact-based reporting in a country that has witnessed a decline in diverse media voices.”

Since the Fidesz government of Viktor Orban came to power in 2010, it has set about emasculating, co-opting, buying up or killing off critical media outlets. In August, the whole editorial team of Hungary’s most-read news site, Index, resigned in protest citing threats to their editorial independence. And in the same week of RFE/RL’s launch, the last remaining critical radio, Klubradio, was informed that its licence would not be automatically extended.

Even before Szabad Európa’s launch, there were indications that RFE/RL’s “signature commitment to serving the public interest by reporting on the issues that matter most to our audiences” would be difficult to maintain in Hungary.

The Hungarian service was launched almost a year after that of the Romanian and Bulgarian editions, with Congress – which allocates almost 800 million dollars to USAGM each year – only finally approving the funding for it last September.

In an interview with BIRN, the director of RFE/RL in Hungary, Gyula Csak, refused to comment on any decisions taken in the US, but there was clearly some behind-the-scenes wrangling over the Hungarian RFE/RL project. In September, just days before Congress approved the funding, a group of US Senators (all Democrats) sent a letter to the US Ambassador to Hungary, David Cornstein, warning him not to interfere with the project.

“We applaud the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s (USAGM) decision to return independent news broadcasts to Hungary via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. It is for this reason that we are so deeply troubled by media reports that you sought to gain assurances from the agency that it would avoid negative stories or investigative journalism regarding Hungary,” the letter read.

Eyebrows were also raised when, back in September, Jamie Fly met with Hungarian officials and tweeted about having had “good meetings” with government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs, who regularly labels any criticism of Hungary as fake news.

Further fuelling suspicions about the US Embassy’s ambivalence over declining democratic standards in Hungary under the government of Prime Minister Orban – who Trump once praised for doing a “tremendous job” – was its decision just before the 2018 parliamentary elections to abruptly cancel a 700,000 dollar State Department grant to support objective reporting in Hungary.

“We were very disappointed by the Embassy,” Miklos Hargitai, President of the National Association of Hungarian Journalists (MUOSz), told BIRN. “Previously, there was a lot of coordination with [the Embassy], identifying where independent media would need most help. A lot of journalists and regional media outlets were already working on their applications when the whole project was just dropped. Nobody ever talked about it.”

To many, this was a signal that US priorities towards Hungary, previously stressing media freedom and democratic norms, had changed since Trump took office – a perception that seemed to be borne out by the arrival in Budapest of Ambassador Cornstein in 2018 with a brief to mend ailing US relations with the Fidesz government.

Cornstein appears to have succeeded in his brief. He is known to enjoy excellent personal relations with Orban and other members of his cabinet, so much so that he made international headlines when he boasted to the New York Times about stripping down to his underwear and relaxing on Orban’s plane after a visit to the White House in 2019.

Cornstein conceded in an interview with news site 24.hu that when he learnt about the return of RFE/RL to Hungary, he wanted to ensure that the government’s side would be given a hearing. “I would like Radio Free Europe to be about important American values. Of course, they also have the right to be critical. All I ask is that if they write something critical, they give the Hungarian government the opportunity to react. And if they write about the government doing anything good, give the opposition a chance to speak as well. That’s all I have asked from the head of the organisation. This way I can fully support the project, but if they don’t, I’ll be grouchy.” Cornstein said.

The head of RFE/RL in Hungary is convinced that his outlet’s journalistic independence will not be jeopardised, even after what has been dubbed the “Wednesday night massacre”, when the heads of the grantee organisations were fired, including his boss Jamie Fly.

“There is a legal firewall, a legal guarantee which protects us from any interference either from politics or from the management. Trust me, we all know what journalistic independence means and how valuable it is,” said Csak, who has previously worked for the BBC and various Hungarian news outlets, including public radio. “After all, many of our colleagues at RFE come from countries where they are no longer able to work as journalists.”

In words that will no doubt go some way to mollifying the US embassy in Budapest, Csak stressed to BIRN that, “public service also means unbiased reporting. We will give all sides the chance to express their opinion.”

Ambassador Cornstein won’t be around to hold Csak to that promise, having announced he will be leaving his post on November 1. Even so, Csak’s team of roughly ten journalists will have their work cut out trying to re-establish balanced public service reporting in a country where the pro- and anti-government media inhabit parallel universes and Orban’s Fidesz party grows increasingly intolerant of critical voices.

Without strong backing at home, RFE/RL might find it has an impossible job on its hands in Hungary.

Rights Groups Urge Albania to ‘Rethink’ Disputed Media Law

Posted on by BIRD

Seven international rights organisations sent an open letter to the Albanian parliament on Wednesday, voicing concern over reports that the ruling Socialist Party is pressing on with legislation targeting the online media, despite fierce international criticism from the Venice Commission, among others.

The seven groups, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, ECPMF, Article 19, the European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, Free Press Unlimited, FPU, the International Press Institute, IPI, Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa, OBCT, and the South East Europe Media Organisation, SEEMO, urged the parliament to drop the current proposals and restart the whole process.

“We are writing to express our grave concern about the apparent plans of the Parliament of Albania to ignore the issues raised in Venice Commission Opinion No. 980/2020 of 19 June 2020, further threatening press freedom and the right to freedom of expression and to information in Albania,” the letter published on the ECPMF website, reads.

“We urge you to rethink the current legislative procedure and instead put in place a transparent process that leads to appropriate legislation that addresses all the Venice Commission’s recommendations, and to include civil society and representatives of the media throughout this process,” the letter adds.

Their letter follows a statement by local media organisations, including BIRN Albania, published last week. In that statement, the signatory organisations observed that the parliament aims to use article 86 of the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly, which says parliament should only reconsider issues introduced by the President of the Republic, to get the disputed law through. The organisations said they fear any changes conducted in this way would only be cosmetic, and would fail to address grave concerns expressed over the law.

The legislation, first proposed by Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama as an “anti-defamation package”, aims to create an administrative body that will be empowered to order media to take down news reports over issues such as “infringing the dignity of individuals”, under the threat of heavy fines. Critics say the law could have a chilling effect on media freedom due to its broad terms.

Following parliamentary approval of the new law amid protests last December, it was blocked by President Ilir Meta, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, PACE, asked the Venice Commission for its opinion.

The Venice Commission criticised the law in entirety and, among other things, warned that it could be used by powerful people to protect themselves from media criticism.

Unbowed by the criticism, Prime Minister Rama called again this month for speedy approval of the law, claiming defamation on online media had reached an unacceptably high level.

Hungary’s Last Independent Radio Station at Risk

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Hungary’s Media Council decided on Friday not to automatically extend the licence of the government-critical Klubradio – the last remaining opposition radio station is Hungary, which only functions offline in the metropolitan area of Budapest.

Klubradio is one of a declining number of outlets that are critical of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz government, which since coming to power in 2010 has set about co-opting or killing off critical media outlets, shrewdly concealing most as neutral business decisions. This led to a number of press freedom, freedom of expression and journalistic organisations earlier this month urging the European Commission to act on several complaints that the Hungarian government has violated EU state aid rules as a means to undermine media pluralism.

The government-appointed Media Council argued that Klubradio had repeatedly violated the country’s media law, therefore its licence – due to expire on February 14, 2021– cannot be automatically extended. If Klubradio wishes to continue its service, the Media Council said it would have to apply for a new licence. Should its application for a new licence fail, Klubradio’s only option would be to broadcast online.

The Media Council did not specify exactly what they meant by violating the media law. Previously, the CEO of Klubradio, Richard Stock, denied to the Media1 news site that his station had committed any violation which could lead to the termination of its licence.

As Media1 reported, this is not the first time that Klubradio’s situation has been precarious. The Media Council has been trying to undermine the radio’s operations for years now, but Klubradio repeatedly went to court and won against the media authority. In a statement, Klubradio said it intends to continue using legal measures to stay on the air.

“The leaders and employees of Klubradio are looking for legal and other means in order to ensure that Hungary’s last independent radio, which authentically informs hundreds of thousands of people every day, is not silenced,” it said in the statement.

From the government’s side, there seems to be a conscious strategy to neuter the radio segment of the media. The Media Council decided to turn off DAB+ digital radio broadcasting in Hungary just last week, arguing that in the last 12 years there has been no real demand for this service. Gabor Polyak, from Mertek Media Monitoring, said in a recent interview that the government wants to keep a tight grip on the radio market. If digital broadcasting were still an option, the Media Council could not keep a monopoly on frequency licences.

Turkish Journalists Accused of Revealing Intelligence Agent Walk Free

Posted on by BIRD

A Turkish court in Istanbul on Wednesday set jail sentences of three to four years for five journalists who reported on the funeral of a Turkish intelligence agent killed in Libya.

However, the same court released three of them, Baris Pehlivan, Hulya Kilinc and Murat Agirel, after taking into account that they had spent more than six months in prison already.

These three were the only remaining ones from the group still in prison. The others in the case were previously released in June.

“There was no guilt in this case. The government aimed to end our journalistic lives. We will continue our journalism as we did before,” Pehlivan said defiantly on Thursday after his release.

Prosecutors in Istanbul previously launched an investigation against the journalists for exposing the identity of a field officer with the National Intelligence Agency, MIT, who had served and died in Libya, where Turkey is supporting the Tripoli government against a rival faction.

Prosecutors said the journalists had revealed important information on intelligence activities and documents, and had put intelligence officers’ families and colleagues in danger.

However, lawmakers in Turkey’s parliament had already revealed the name of the MIT agent.

The journalists arrested in February were known to be critical of the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Istanbul court acquitted the journalists of charges of “revealing information about the state’s security and political interest” but found five of them guilty of “exposing information and documents that were obtained by intelligence activities”.

Aydın Keser, editor of Yeni Yasam daily newspaper, its executive editor Mehmet Ferhat Celik and Murat Agirel were sentenced to four years and eight months each.

Baris Pehlivan and Hulya Kilinc were sentenced to three years and nine months. Oda TV news director Baris Terkoglu and municipal press officer Eren Ekinci were acquitted. Another journalist from Birgun newspaper, Erk Acarer, had his case separated from the main case.

Human rights groups and opposition parties had called on the Turkish government to release the journalists.

The country is now one of worst jailers of journalists in the world. According to the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, 72 journalists and media workers are currently behind bars. Media watchdog Reporters without Borders ranks Turkey in 154th place out of 180 countries on its Press Freedom Index.

Since a failed coup in 2016, the authorities have closed 70 newspapers, 20 magazines, 34 radio stations and 33 television channels as part of a brutal crackdown on critics.

Slovak Businessman and Associate Found Not Guilty of Ordering Murder of Journalist

Posted on by BIRD

A Slovak court on Thursday found businessman Marian Kocner and his associate Alena Zsuzsova not guilty of ordering the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak from 2018, in a landmark case that reshaped the country’s political landscape and which is still having repercussions today.

In what many in the local media consider a surprising verdict given the weight of evidence presented in the court, the three-member senate said there was insufficient evidence to convict Kocner and Zsuzsova, who were suspected of ordering the murder of the investigative journalist and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova.

A third defendant on trial with Kocner and Zsuzsova, former soldier Tomas Szabo, was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in a maximum security prison. Szabo was a cousin of Miroslav Marcek, who admitted to shooting Kuciak and Kusnirova at the beginning of the trial. Another man was sentenced to 15 years last year for involvement in the murder-for-hire.

The prosecution is expected to appeal the decision of the special court at the Supreme Court. Right after the verdict, Dennik N daily reported that the senate was divided in their opinions, with two of the judges outvoting the chair Ruzena Sabova. Disputes among the senate were suspected back in August, when the original date of verdict hearing was moved to September 3.

Slovak media have described the verdict as “shocking” given the mountain of evidence against Kocner and Zsuzsova that was presented during the trial. The families of the victims listened to the verdict in tears, leaving the courtroom immediately after hearing the acquittal of Kocner.

The killings of Kuciak and his architect fiancée Martina Kusnirova confirmed many people’s worst fears about the existence in Slovakia of a nexus of organised crime, oligarch power and political mafia which had corrupted much of the country. Mass protests across the country in 2018 led to the resignation of the then-prime minister, Robert Fico.

Press Freedom Groups Urge EU to Act over Hungary Media Violations

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A number of press freedom, freedom of expression and journalists’ organisations urged the European Commission on Wednesday to act on several complaints that the Hungarian government has violated EU state aid rules as a means to undermine media pluralism.

The joint letter from 16 organisations – including Reporters Without Borders, the International Press Institute and the Committee to Protect Journalists – comes after a decade of attacks by Viktor Orban’s government on the independence of the country’s media. This has resulted in “a degree of [state] media control unprecedented in an EU member state”, according to Reporters without Borders, and the country falling to 89th place out of 180 countries on its World Press Freedom Index.

The letter calls on Competition Commissioner Margarethe Vestager to act on complaints that the Hungarian government has violated EU state aid rules by manipulating the media market through the weaponization of state resources “to punish critical media and reward government mouthpieces.”

The letter’s authors highlight their serious concern that the European Commission has not acted on two State Aid complaints (No. 53108 and No. 45463) lodged in 2018 and 2016.

State Aid complaint No. 53108, lodged in November 2018, alleges bias in the distribution of state advertising to media outlets in Hungary. By way of example, the signatories cite the case of Index.hu, Hungary’s largest independent and most popular online news site, which in the years prior to last month’s mass resignations over threats to its editorial interference received virtually nothing in state advertising, despite being a market leader, while its main competitor, the pro-government Origo.hu, benefitted heavily.

State Aid complaint No. 45463, lodged in 2016, concerns the Hungarian public service broadcaster (PSB), which the signatories claim has long since ceased to meet the definition of public service broadcasting, with news coverage presented in a way that shows deliberate and clear bias in favour of the ruling Fidesz party.

The European Commission’s failure to act on these complaints, the letter notes, “allows for the further decimation of independent media in the country”.

Hungary’s government has, indeed, an impressive track record of killing critical media outlets, shrewdly concealing most as some kind of neutral business decisions. The process of co-opting state media into government mouthpieces, the centralisation of all regional daily newspapers, and the takeover or closure of several government-critical news sites and newspapers culminated in almost all government-loyal media outlets being centralised in KESMA (the Hungarian acronym for Central European Press and Media Foundation).

This merger, which was clearly in breach of all the country’s competition laws, could not be investigated by the Competition Authority, as it was branded of “strategic importance” by the government. This move was later ruled legal by the country’s pliant Constitutional Court.

“The creation of the KESMA foundation in late 2018, which united pro-government media and was exempted from normal competition review, further undermined media pluralism in Hungary and has facilitated a centralized system of content control,” the letter said. “By the end of 2018, according to independent research, an estimated 80 percent of the market for public affairs news was being financed by sources determined by the FIDESZ party. This means KESMA now controls over 470 media outlets in Hungary.”

The letter concludes by urging the European Commission take action to defend the right of the Hungarian public to access free and pluralistic sources of news. “This must include responding to all complaints related to the misuse of state aid in Hungary. Addressing these issues is essential to defending media freedom, media pluralism and the rule of law both in Hungary and within the EU as a whole,” it said.

Jansa is Eroding Press Freedom in Slovenia, IPI Warns

Posted on by BIRD

Slovenia is among the few countries in Europe that have experienced a swift downturn in press and media freedom, according to the latest report of the International Press Institute, IPI, a global network of journalists, editors and media executives defending press freedom.

Jamie Wiseman, Advocacy Officer at IPI, stated in the in-depth report published on Tuesday that the Slovenian government led by Janez Jansa was contributing to an increasingly hostile environment for journalists.

The IPI report noted that, according to some observers, Jansa has launched “vitriolic attacks on reporters on Twitter, enabling a wider increase in digital harassment from online trolls and contributing to an increasingly hostile climate for watchdog journalism”.

Jansa, an ally of authoritarian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, returned for a third stint as prime minister on March 13, a little over a week after Slovenia confirmed its first case of the coronavirus. He replaced Marjan Sarec, whose centre-left coalition fell in January.

The change of power coincided with what the IPI said is an unprecedented wave of insults and online smear campaigns against journalists in Slovenia.

Jansa has taken to Twitter to denounce the Slovenian public broadcaster; his government has sought to portray mainstream media outlets as heirs of the Yugoslav-era communist security services, while the government’s Crisis Headquarters, tasked with coordinating the fight against COVID-19, has retweeted anonymous attacks on the investigative journalist Blaz Zgaga.

As IPI recalled, in mid-March, a government account retweeted a claim that Zgaga was an “escaped psychiatric patient”. Shortly after that, the reporter began receiving numerous online death threats and smears, drawing condemnation from international organisations.

Observers and journalists told IPI that “animosity from officials has enabled increasing harassment of journalists online”, from which neither foreign journalists nor public television journalists were spared.

Despite reasons for worry, Wiseman wrote that “concerns that Slovenia will become another illiberal democracy akin to Hungary are, for now, premature”.

”Nonetheless the exporting of Hungarian methods to Slovenia and other states in Central and South-Eastern European countries should worry EU leaders,” he continued, urging the EU and other organisations to follow developments in Slovenia closely and react strongly if need be.

“In the coming weeks, all eyes will be focused on the end of the public consultation into the legislative amendments to the public broadcaster and press agency,” the report noted, referring to plans by Slovenia’s government to amend public service media legislation, which some experts see as an attempt to rein in state media.

On the other hand, the Slovenian Culture Ministry told BIRN in July that nothing in the set of laws indicates that public media will be put under direct state influence. “The laws are not changing corporate or programming governance of RTV Slovenia, nor do they have provisions to do that,” it pointed out.

On August 25, the government responded to an alert on the Council of Europe’s platform, which monitors press freedom, issued in May, attaching Jansa’s own essay, “War with the media”, and offered additional explanations, insisting that “freedom of expression is a right that belongs to every individual”.

“Negative criticism of an individual journalist, publisher or broadcaster by the prime minister, does not automatically render it an attack or an encroachment on media independence,“ the letter said.

“Finally the World Press Freedom Index, published annually by international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders, ranks Slovenia 32nd, which is two places better than in 2019 and the same as in 2018,” the government observed.

Albania Courts Seize TV Stations Owned by Govt Critic

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Albania’s Special Prosecutors on Monday said they seized scores of properties of Ylli Ndroqi, one of the main media owners in the country, who has crossed swords with the government, suspecting they were the product of international drugs trading. Among the seized assets are two TV stations, Ora News and Channel One.

“We have reasons to suspect that Ylli Ndroqi (alias Xhemail Pasmaciu) and his relatives have unjustified wealth that might have originated in his criminal activity in Albania, Turkey and Italy,” prosecutors said.

Several apartments, cars, including a Rolls Royce, as well as 100,000 square metres of forested area near Tirana were seized along with the TV stations. Police forces were stationed on the premises of Ora News on Monday afternoon.

The seized television stations have hosted several talks shows critical of the Socialist government of Prime Minister Edi Rama who has made no secret of his frustration with critical media.

Ndroqi has exchanged words personally with Rama ally Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj on social media, Ndoqi accused Veliaj of attempting to silence his journalists while Veliaj accused Ndroqi of attempting to blackmail him.

Alban Qafa, a defence attorney for the suspect, told journalists that his client’s wealth was legitimate and the seizure order would be fought in the courts. “Ndroqi’s wealth has legitimate sources and we will prove this,” Qafa said, adding that his client suspected that the seizure was the result of a political attack.

Brahim Shima, director of Ora News, also considered the move a politically motivated attack, due to his station’s editorial line.

According to prosecutors, Ndroqi was arrested in Turkey in 1998 under the name Xhemail Pasmaciu while data about his suspected criminal activity were collected by the joint collaboration of Turkish and Italian authorities.

Ndroqi is not currently under arrest or charged as yet.

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