Slovenia: critics of Covid measures broke into state television

A group of corona critics broke into the building of the Slovenian state television RTVS on Friday evening. They asked the broadcaster to give their opinion on the matter. The police immediately stopped the attack and arrested 20 intruders, the Slovenian news agency STA reported on Saturday.

"This is an unacceptable attack on the media, journalism and democracy," said the station's news editor Manica Janezic Ambrozic. Slovenia's journalists' association DNS said the incident was only "the tip of the iceberg" in the "hate campaign" waged by Prime Minister Janez Jansa's government against the media.

Jansa condemned the incident. He wrote on Twitter on Saturday: "This is violence against freedom." Everything must be done "to condemn and punish any kind of arbitrary and violent appropriation of public space (...) as well as threats".

The corona deniers, as the media call them, have been protesting in front of the television building for four months and harassing its employees. The problem is that the area in front of the television building is public land, so protesters are entitled to gather there, Whatmough said.

Behind the incident is a movement led by former army officer Ladislav Troha, a veteran of the 1991 Slovenian War of Independence, STA said. In Slovenia, the incidence of new corona infections in the last 14 days was 257.3 per 100,000 inhabitants. 50.8 percent of Slovenes have full vaccination protection.

Source: Kleine Zeitung