Europe, Headlines, Human Rights, Press Freedom

SLOVAKIA: Govt Wins First Battle Against Media

Zoltán Dujisin

PRAGUE, May 14 2008 (IPS) - In the midst of a war against the media, the government has passed a controversial press bill that journalists and opposition alike say endangers freedom of the press.

Social Democrat Prime Minister Robert Fico has been waging a year-long war against Slovakia's media, accusing it of biased reporting against his government and of serving the interests of financial groups.

The controversial bill was passed Apr. 9 in spite of fierce criticism by opposition parties and media representatives, and it will be enforced in June.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) criticised some provisions in the bill, saying it restricts freedom of speech, although it agreed with the government that the old press law, dating from communist-era Czechoslovakia, needs replacement. The OSCE is an international forum for political dialogue with 56 members from Europe, Central Asia and North America.

The OSCE expressed worries on the extensive and vague "right to reply" even in cases where the information to which the offended part is reacting is accurate. The right is common practice in other EU countries, but only in response to incorrect facts.

On Mar. 27 Slovakia's six leading newspapers protested against the proposed new law by publishing almost blank front pages, printing only the seven controversial articles of the media bill, dubbed the "seven capital sins". The press took the same course of action the day after the bill was approved in parliament.

Publishers have threatened to take their case to the European Court for Human Rights, but Fico says it is not freedom of press that is endangered in Slovakia, but plurality of views.

In late February Fico's language shocked journalists when he asked several media outlets to "stop behaving like prostitutes that are able to write anything in the name of money, advertising and everything else just to protect pension management companies."

The Prime Minster was reacting to media criticism to his pension reform, which runs against the interests of private health insurance companies.

Last summer Fico condemned journalists who had accepted a skiing trip to the Alps paid for by a private pension management company, arguing that the company had bought the journalists' favourable coverage.

"Fico's problems with the media mainly stem from the fact that he simply does not understand or accept the role of independent media in a democratic society," Rasto Kuzel from MEMO 98, an independent media monitoring organisation, told IPS.

But besides Fico's confrontational approach towards the media, the lack of any mainstream left-wing media in Slovakia has also contributed to the stand-off.

"There is a lack of left-wing mainstream media in Slovakia, and the media in general were accused of pursuing only right-wing ideas. The trend has partly changed lately with media trying to present ideas from left-wing analysts, but the problem is that there are few of them," the analyst said.

The opposition has also been a key player in the media war by threatening to boycott the ratification of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty in response to the press bill, but the opposition Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) surprisingly voted in support of the treaty Apr. 10.

Some speculate the SMK made a secret deal with the government: support for the EU treaty in exchange for improved conditions for the Hungarian minority in the education bill to be approved soon in parliament.

Others go as far as speculating that this is a first sign of a possible coalition between the governing Smer and the SMK in the 2010 elections. The governing coalition, led since the summer 2006 elections by Fico's Smer (Direction – Social Democrats), also includes a smaller extreme-right party hostile to the country's substantial ethnic Hungarian minority, the Slovak National Party (SNS).

This had led to Smer's suspension last year within the Party of European Socialists, which however recently said the press law is "acceptable."

The two other right-wing opposition parties, the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKU) and the Christian Democratic Union (KDH), have accused the SMK of betrayal and shady deals.

The SMK has denied any backstage dealings, and argues the press bill was partially modified thanks to the opposition's temporary boycott of the Lisbon Treaty.

Moreover, it accused the SDKU leader and former prime minister Mikulas Dzurinda of attempting himself to negotiate a deal with Fico, an accusation also promptly denied by Dzurinda.

The Hungarian party may have ultimately considered its European partners: it sees in the EU the best guarantor of the rights of its 500,000 strong minority in a five million country, and it feared disappointing Brussels.

The infighting will further weaken a splintered and increasingly unpopular opposition, facing the most popular Slovak politician ever, whose party has consistent approval rates above 40 percent.