Veran Matić  – Silencing the KRIK

The author: Veran Matić

My first thought was what kind of hell awaits the defendants Bojana Pavlović and Stevan Dojčinović in the next three years, which I believe will be the duration of the trial until the final verdict. KRIK has 16 similar SLAPP lawsuits aimed at intimidating, disrupting and, I’m sure, destroying the newsroom. In addition, the editorial office sued tabloids and individuals for defamation and lies told about them. 

The question inevitably came to me, how was it for our colleague Daphne Caruana Galizia from Malta, with 48 SLAPP processes that the powerful led against her, with blocked accounts and harassment by every possible institution in Malta, without the much-needed support of the media community. And with no international support. Yet with a stronger will to continue the investigations that exposed crime and corruption at the top of the EU member state. Doing her job according to journalistic standards, believing in the idea of ​​justice, EU postulates and values. The car she got into in front of her house, to go to the bank to solve the blockage of her account, which is important for the family’s existence, exploded from a huge amount of explosives placed under it. 

It’s the same feeling when it comes to Ján Kuciak from Slovakia… The lack of strong support and effective protection created an opportunity for the violent to make decisions involving murder. Thus demonstrating the message of what will happen to anyone who touches them. Both investigations and court proceedings take place in a similar atmosphere. Just as it was in our country in the case of the trial of the accused for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija. Today, the children of Slavko Ćuruvija, the founders of the foundation that bears his name, have become the target of SLAPP lawsuits against former defendants, who were convicted twice in the first instance, then acquitted by a panel of which Judge Djordjević was a member. 

Unsolved cases of threats to KRIK journalists were running through my head. Since records have been kept (starting with 2016), more than ten cases of endangering the safety of members of this newsroom have been reported to the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office. We had raids on the apartments of three members of the KRIK newsroom – those in which values ​​are not taken, but sources, data are sought, what is being worked on, what is the next topic to be investigated… I remember the discussions at the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, when I insisted that the investigations be combined, look for coincidences, motives… Nothing was done. I remember submitting request for the monitoring of two members of the newsroom, we struggled for a long time to get the job of checking the cameras done… Even though the monitoring was registered, there were no results. Bojana Pavlović was intercepted by unknown persons (some of whom she identified) and temporarily confiscated her phone during the implementation of her work assignment. No one suffered the consequences. 

And not only is there no justice for these brave and very professional journalists, but they are the target of a whole series of activities aimed at preventing and stopping their work. 

The impunity of threats and violence against journalists encourages and emboldens that violence to continue. 

And court proceedings against journalists for presenting facts and publishing judgments against them stifle freedom of speech and the role of journalists as a “watchdog” of the public interest. 

In the case of KRIK, we have impunity for violence towards the editorial office, but also active processes aimed at intimidating and preventing them from doing their work. 

We also witness joint activities from different directions, by diverse institutions and powerful individuals with the aim for KRIK to be destroyed. 

I really think that there is an ongoing campaign to silence and destroy KRIK, because the newsroom is at the same time facing numerous threats, endangering the safety of journalists, preventing normal work, numerous SLAPP lawsuits, threatened penalties that are a combination of high financial, prison sentences and bans on journalistic work, and constant satanization with lies and slander through tabloids, and very often from the highest positions of executive and legislative power. All together it presents a package for shutting down this newsroom, as well as others that engage in journalism in a similar way, investigating crime and corruption and publishing the facts. 

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When you sit in the courtroom, even though it is only a preliminary hearing, you can easily see the nature of the process, the intentions and the goals. 

I thought that, at the preliminary hearing on the criminal complaint, the plaintiff’s lawyers made an error when they proved the fear of the judge and her husband with texts from the Informer, for which, according to defense lawyer Kruna Savović, Stevan Dojčinović sued them. The informant was legally sentenced to compensation for damages and the obligation to publish the judgment in which the lies were proven. However, the representatives of the judge and the husband also present the same evidence in the civil proceedings, the texts for which the tabloid media and authors were convicted with the force of law. This kind of behavior is coercive, because it does not take into account the fact that this argument has already been refuted by final judgments. It represents an additional effort to slander and discredit the editor and the newsroom and it is another proof that this is a SLAPP lawsuit, because regardless of the inaccuracy of the evidence, they are used as content to get additional time… Moreover, through their representative, they say that they were exposed to media lynching, without a single proof, except for that from social networks, from the words of those who comment on the news, without any influence and responsibility of the KRIK newsroom. 

Therefore, the value system relied on by the judge and her husband, the lawyer, is a tabloid lie as evidence against journalists who have been awarded numerous domestic and international awards for their professionalism and ethics. When looking at this list of recognitions, it is impossible to see any logic used by the prosecutors. 

List of awards and recognitions: KRIK team KRIK tim – KRIK

Their representative claims that awards are a way of financing such projects, without a single proof, but it additionally reveals the nature of this lawsuit – it needs to be proven that they are foreign mercenaries, even if they interpret prestigious international awards as a way of financing the work of this newsroom. KRIK, by the way, very transparently presents data on donors and donations. And that is why it is necessary to compromise that transparency by making insinuations. 

Someone who is supposed to protect legislation and constitutional order, relies on the information of those media who are punished almost on  a daily basis for violating the journalistic code, and against those who consistently investigate the pathologies of society and make them public. 

The plaintiff’s lawyers are pushing a thesis that has not been proven – that the judge and her husband, the lawyer, are presented as someone who acquired property through crime and corruption. They themselves insist on that intention because there is no evidence that KRIK accused them of such a thing. 

This is also the reason why they oppose the hearing of journalist Jelena Radivojević, who wrote the text entitled “Judge Who Judges”, accompanying the database, in which there is no statement or insinuation to that effect. The journalist also contacted the judge, who refused to comment on publicly available data. Publicly available facts were published, the judge was offered to provide additional information and arguments, facts, and Jelena Radivojević’s completely neutral text about publicly available data was published. All that is enough evidence for the indictment to be dismissed. 

Judge who judges | Dušanka Djordjević 

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The lawyer of one of the plaintiffs additionally accused all the journalists who followed the hearing of selective reporting and of putting pressure on the court and of working, together with the defendants, on the collapse of the constitutional order. 

The lack of evidence against KRIK newsroom is compensated by serious accusations that the editorial staff, as well as the journalists who report, are working to collapse the constitutional order. Without a single proof. Professional reports from the trial and texts about all the actors of this trial are proclaimed pressure exerted on the court. Another message is that journalists should not report on prosecutors and the trial itself. 

The reports of Vuk Cvijić and Perica Gunjić from the trial objectively convey what happened in the courtroom and provide very useful information for understanding this trial. 

Criminal proceedings against KRIK: Trial by the facts 

The advocates of the lawsuit against KRIK propose as evidence the text from Informer, for which this tabloid was condemned

It is very clear how the prosecutor’s representatives, the judge and her husband, the lawyer, use the deep political polarization in society, with strong rhetoric in which it is necessary to first stick labels and slanders on enemies, calling them foreign mercenaries, destroyers of the constitutional order, because that  would make them an easier target. And during the trial for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, the same qualifications that were used by the Milosevic regime in the nineties could be heard from the defense lawyers, such as׃ traitor, foreign mercenary…

Bojana Pavlović, Stevan Dojčinović and the editorial staff of KRIK are on trial for publishing publicly available information on the website of the State Geodetic Institute. In the absence of an argument to criminalize publicly available facts, the representatives of the lawsuit try to prove that the publication of these data threatens the safety of the judge. And they submit a description of how it is possible “in three steps” with the help of this data to get to the place of residence of the judge and her husband, the lawyer. Therefore, the newsroom did not reveal the whereabouts of this family. But the representatives of the judge seem to want to do it at any cost and provide proof “how it can be done in three steps”. Since the editorial office of KRIK only transferred existing data from a publicly available database that anyone can look at, if there is any objection to privacy protection, the right address is the State Geodetic Institute, which certainly does not violate the laws of this country by publishing data that also represents the family’s property status of Judge Djordjević and her husband, lawyer Djordjević, without any changes. 

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This is a typical case for compliance with the EU Anti-SLAPP Directive, which [despite it only applies to cross-border cases] still contains interesting mechanisms to combat SLAPP claims such as, for example, giving judges the possibility to dismiss such applications at an early stage as unfounded.

Since the EU’s anti-SLAPP directive has not yet been integrated into our legislation, we will witness another agony of KRIK suppression. 

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In addition to threats, the editorial office regularly faces lawsuits from the powerful who try to stop the work of KRIK, or at least not to write about them. This interference is very noticeable in the case of Minister Nenad Popović, who never appeared at the trials.

The mere review of the names of those who sued KRIK speaks of the dangerous situation in which this newsroom finds itself, and investigative journalism in general, media freedom and freedom of speech in general. This is where the formal and informal power of this state is concentrated. 

The largest number of these lawsuits fall under the term SLAPP lawsuits, which aim to prevent journalists from continuing to deal with topics they have already researched and published, to prevent the newsroom from doing its job through lengthy processes, to demonize the newsroom through the tabloid media and target it in order to be constantly threatened. 

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I think it is important to globally understand the complexity of the problems faced by journalists and media in Serbia, defenders of freedom of speech and civil society organizations. We are not statistics. So many attacks, so many threats, verbal and physical, so many SLAPP lawsuits, so many attacks on female journalists. All together it’s very bad, and that’s why we need to protect, stand in solidarity and defend ourselves. 

The trial on the criminal charge continues on November 12 at 2 p.m. in courtroom number 13 of the First Basic Court in Belgrade, 15 Katanić Street.