Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has filed a lawsuit against Peter Bárdy, editor-in-chief of Aktuality.sk, over his bestselling book about him, prompting Reporters Without Borders to strongly condemn Fico’s move in the biggest case against a journalist in modern Slovak history.
Bárdy reported on Thursday about the lawsuit over his best-selling book Fico—Obsessed with Power (2023), adding that the lawsuit also targets the publisher, Ringier Slovakia Media.
“We are convinced that we have not violated the law, which we will defend and explain in court. And we believe in a fair trial,” Bárdy wrote on a news portal.
The prime minister has long had a complicated relationship with the media. Last year, Fico included Aktuality.sk among the so-called hostile media to which he no longer answers questions.
According to Aktuality.sk, this is the largest lawsuit against a journalist in Slovakia’s modern history. The prime minister is demanding an apology and €100,000 in damages not only from the author but also from the company.
Ironically, as Bárdy points out, Fico does not object to the publication’s critical content but rather to its cover, which depicts the prime minister.
“If they wanted to intimidate me with this lawsuit, if it was supposed to trigger self-censorship on my part, then it did not work,” he added.
Pavol Szalai, head of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ‘s EU-Balkan desk, also sees a motive behind the lawsuit.
Undignified reaction for a PM
“Robert Fico’s lawsuit against the editor-in-chief of Aktuality.sk is a SLAPP procedure which is not worthy of a PM of an EU country, but is, unfortunately, part of the strategy of the PM to muzzle Slovak journalists critical of him,” Szalai told Euractiv Slovakia.
SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, a lawsuit designed to intimidate and provoke self-censorship.
“The fact that the lawsuit was filed by the PM Fico, who was in power at the time of the murder of a journalist Ján Kuciak from Aktuality.sk, of whom Peter Bárdy was already the editor-in-chief, is a certain aggravating circumstance,” Szalai added.
The murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová in 2018 led to one of the largest protests in Slovakia’s modern history, forcing Fico to resign.
Even Greece, which ranks last among EU countries in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index, “it is not the prime minister who attacks journalists through SLAPPs,” Szalai added.
According to him, such a form of intimidation, as demonstrated by Fico against Bárdy, reflects Slovakia’s decline in the rankings, dropping a full 12 places to 29th.
“After several administrations that sought to improve press freedom, the 2023 parliamentary elections brought Prime Minister Robert Fico back to power, signalling the end of efforts in this area,” RSF assessed the situation in Slovakia at the time.
They recalled that “the instigator of Kuciak’s murder has yet to be convicted” and that Slovak “journalists work in a hostile environment, and both public and privately owned media remain vulnerable to interests unrelated to journalism.”
This year, Fico’s government successfully reformed the country’s public broadcaster RTVS, effectively tightening state control over the medium – a legislative change closely monitored by the European Commission, the EU executive told Euractiv Slovakia in June.
(Natália Silenská | Euractiv.sk)
Source: euractiv.com
