Slovenian police have raided the offices of right-leaning news outlet Nova24 just days before the European Parliament elections on June 8.
Law enforcement reportedly stormed both the offices of the outlet as well as the home of its director, Boris Tomašić, confiscating his computer and telephone.
Milan Zver, an MEP with the country’s main opposition group, the Slovenian Slovenian Democratic Party (SD), said the raid on May 29 represented a “severe breach of independence” of the media as well as a “political misuse of the police”.
Zver said the move was an attempt by current Slovenia Prime Minister Robert Golob to redraw the political landscape in the name of “depoliticisation, which is actually complete politicisation”.
The MEP wrote in an open letter to Věra Jourová, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, that the action marked a “direct and severe attack on media independence” that came as the public broadcaster RTV suffered a mass prohibition of working journalists and “programmes critical of the Government’s work”.
Meanwhile, party leader and three-times former Slovenia prime minister Janez Janša described Nova24 as the “only significant media that is sympathetic to the opposition”
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In January, 15 journalists from the RTV news programme Panorama were ordered to stay away from work on reduced pay.
“Left-wing parties took over RTV” and purged the broadcaster of reporters deemed sympathetic to the previous government of Janša, former Panorama editor Rajko Geric told US State-owned broadcaster Voice of America.
Janša’s SD has topped Golob’s Freedom Movement party in each poll so far for the June 9 EP elections. The SD achieved 27.5 per cent against 17.6 per cent for the Freedom Movement in a May 16 poll published by Ljubljana daily newspaper Dnevnik.
Andrius Tursa, an analyst with US-based multinational advisory firm Teneo, told Brussels Signal the Eurosceptic SD held “extensive and relatively stable voter support” in Slovenia, led by a charismatic leader relying heavily on social media to appeal to disillusioned voter groups.
One Slovenian X user noted investigations “against the few critical media — whatever we think of Nova24 — are a sign that the regime is doing badly”.
In light of the latest incident, Janša queried: “Is this the rule of law in the middle of the EU?”
The police raid came after Golob set up a parliamentary investigative commission to look into allegations of illegal political party financing.
It has “the sole intention of intimidating opposition media in Slovenia”, claimed Zver.
Police also searched the offices of State-owned telecoms company Telekom Slovenije, along with the homes of 11 former members of its management.
Tomašić, one of Nova24‘s founders and a co-owner, was previously executive director with Radio Gorenc, in Northern Slovenia’s Gorenjska district.
In October 2023 at Nova24, he set a Guinness World Record for the longest talk show, coming in at 73 hours 23 minutes.
Police targeted Nova24 “instead of Prime Minister Robert Golob”, Tomašić quipped after the raids, “as Golob did not dare to do that himself”.
Golob’s ongoing targeting of the cultural sector has also included the cancellation of a May 17 commemoration of victims of Communism.
Janša, who launched the event at the end of his time in office in 2022, has claimed credit for being one of the key figures contributing to Slovenia’s 1990-1 secession from the former Yugoslavia.
Golob’s centre-left party, though, celebrates the 1953-1980 Communist government of Jozef Broz Tito, who was half-Slovenian.
