“This fine represents an unsettling trend in Europe – the erosion of journalists’ right to protect their sources,’’ said IPI Director David Dadge. “In Sabina Slonkova’s case, and similar rulings in France and Britain, courts have said that the fundamental right to protect the confidentiality of sources does not apply. Without this right, investigative journalism – and the public’s right to know what their representatives are doing– will suffer.”
Czech authorities considered the leak a violation of privacy laws, and the police and prosecutors launched criminal investigations.
Investigators approached Slonkova for information, but she refused to reveal the identity of the individual who provided her with the footage on the basis that a journalist’s right to protect the confidentiality of their sources is enshrined in national law.
This was accepted by all the investigators with the exception of the state prosecutor, who pursued the case against her. On 28 November, she was fined 700 euros for violating the privacy laws.
Slonkova appealed, but the fine was upheld by a Prague district court on 6 February.
This is not the first time that Slonkova has been singled out for her investigative journalism. In 2002, police foiled a high-level plot to kill Slonkova, after one of the would-be killers turned informer. A former senior Foreign Ministry official, Karel Srba, and four others were found guilty of conspiring to murder the journalist. Slonkova had written several investigative articles questioning Srba’s financial dealings while at the ministry.
The fine against Slonkova raises fresh concerns about a backslide in media freedom in the Czech Republic, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. The court’s ruling in the Slonkova case came only a day after the lower house of the Parliament overturned a Senate veto of a bill containing controversial amendments that would criminalise the disclosure of police wiretaps by the media.
If Czech President Vaclav Klaus signs the bill into law, journalists who make public such wiretaps will face a fine of up to 180,000 euros or a jail term of up to five years.
The bill has sparked outrage among Czech journalists, who have used leaked wiretaps to uncover graft. “Confidentiality of sources is there to protect investigative reporting, which is essential if journalists are to act in the public interest,’’ Dadge said.
For more information, contact:
Timothy Spence
Press and Communications Manager
Tel: +43 1 512 90 11
E-mail: tspence(at)freemedia.at
