Slovenian journalist indicted

The Slovenian prosecutors’ office has indicted Anuška Delić, a journalist for the Slovenian newspaper Delo, for allegedly publishing classified secrets in her articles on Slovenian neo-Nazis. If found guilty, she could face up to three years in prison.

Øyvind Strømmen

In the autumn of 2011, Delić began investigating the Slovenian division of Blood & Honour, a loosely organized international neo-Nazi network. She had received information that Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik had sent the group his manifesto in connection with his double terror attack in Norway, which killed 77 people on 22 July 2011.

Delíc had also been informed that the informal leader of Slovenia’s Blood & Honour group, Dejan Prosen, was simultaneously active within the country’s large centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party, or SDS, the party of former Prime Minister Janez Janša.

Prosen denied involvement with Blood & Honour, and while he said that he was a member of the SDS, he denied having any function within the party. He identified himself as a “patriot” and as a member of the organization Tukaj je Slovenija, another organization on the Slovenian far right. But other sources confirmed the allegations. In late November, just days before Slovenian parliamentary elections, Delić wrote an article on the Slovenian Blood & Honour group that described Prosen as both a central member of the neo-Nazi organization and an activist in the SDS. The article also mentioned that the newspaper had uncovered the names of members of the Slovenian armed forces who were involved in Blood & Honour. Over the next two days, the article was followed up with an article on the neo-Nazi music scene and a blog post.

According to Delo, the indictment against Delić claims that she had gained access to and published classified information from the Slovenian intelligence services, SOVA. In an interview with HSI, she said that she sees the process against her as politically motivated.

“This is a retaliatory measure for my disclosure of the dark side of a big political party, and for our courage of publishing this during the election campaign,” she said. “It is led by a wish to identify my sources and aims to curtail freedom of media.”

She added that she would rather go to jail than identify her sources.

Right-wing extremism has received increased focus in Slovenia lately, after anti-establishment protests in late 2012 turned into riots, apparently provoked by neo-Nazis. In late January, the public broadcaster RTV sent the documentary Koalicija Sovraštva (Coalition Hatred), which has led to further debate. Janša, who was serving a second term as prime minster in 2013, was forced from office in March last year, amid protests over corruption and recession.

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About Øyvind Strømmen

Øyvind Strømmen is a Norwegian freelance journalist, author and managing editor of Hate Speech International. He has written extensively on the extreme right and other forms of extremism since 2007, and has published the Norwegian-language books Det mørke nettet (2011) and Den sorte tråden (2013), the first of which is also translated into Swedish, Finnish and French.
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