You are liars, bloody liars. We can only say this and this exclusively regarding your report (especially the part on Slovenia; HERE) on the state of democracy during the COVID-19 pandemic. You manipulated and lied about the state of democracy in Slovenia, thus we justifiably doubt what you wrote about other countries: from Germany and Italy to Hungary and Bulgaria.
We do not intend to apologise for our words, you took your gloves off with lies and we also put ours aside, so we, who are otherwise tactful and polite, will not choose our words carefully now. You were obviously misled by unilateral information coming from Slovenia, which is a mitigating circumstance that we do consider, however, you should have double checked the information before you spread lies.
- Following the resignation of Marjan Šarec, who led the centre-left government, and before the new centre-right government even swore in, left-wing activists organised protests at which they screamed: Kill, kill Janša! (Janez Janša, President of the Slovenian Democratic Party – SDS, is the new Prime Minister.). You can watch the video HERE. Nobody reacted.
- Before the new centre-right government even started to work, the left-wing and progressive-prone media (95 percent of media in Slovenia) began to spread fear that the government led by Janez Janša is introducing a dictatorship by adopting measures to combat the pandemic. None of this happened. Slovenia was the first country in the EU to lift the restrictive measures. And these measures were not disproportionate at all, as you claim. Many EU countries have adopted stricter restrictive measures.
- Despite the measures, the centre-right government allowed the so-called “cycling protests”. It did not restrict anyone from protesting peacefully while the left-wing protesters restricted and hindered the normal life of citizens of Ljubljana – they walked violently on the streets and roads without the permission of the local authorities, which Slovenian legislation requires.
- Anyone reading your report would think that critical journalists in Slovenia have been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, and censored since the beginning of the government led by Janez Janša (SDS). None of this is true. In Slovenia, everyone is guaranteed freedom of speech as well as freedom in general. No one was persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, nor censored. In fact, if someone critiques the reporting of the media and journalists (including those you refer to), that is something completely normal, an expression of plurality, openness and a free society. Neither the media nor journalists are exempt from criticism. However, it is true that most Slovenian media has got used to living in a bubble, they wanted to be untouchable and they were not used to being warned about their lies..
And the conclusion? You’re lying, you’re bloody lying.
Jože Biščak, editor-in-chief of the magazine Demokracija and president of the Slovenian Association of Patriotic Journalists, and Vinko Vasle, long-time journalist and editor and former director of Radio Slovenia.