Coalition Slovenia assesses the blocking of access to the internet as inadmissible version of censorship and calls on the Slovenian authority to finally and fully investigate and regulate the issue of the former Yougoslav communist secret police (udba) fi

Torek, 22. april

Slovenian Internet Providers Were Ordered to Block Access to a Website www.udba.net, Containing Personal Data of Over One Million Alleged Collaborators of the Former Yugoslav Communist Secret Police UDBA

Coalition Slovenia, including the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia (SDS) and New Slovenia (NSi), raises a severe protest against the attempt to reintroduce censorship in the media. In his verbal and E - mail form of decree, the inspector of personal data protection ordered the Internet providers to block access or review of the website www.udba.net. Since the first democratic elections held in Slovenia in 1990 and the gaining of Slovenian independence, it is the first time such measure has been introduced. By definition, the Internet is the media without borders or limits, therefore such measure is even more controversial. Moreover, thousands of websites with more questionable issues can be found on the Internet than those appearing on the Slovenian censored website www.udba.net.

According to the media news, the police has already launched an investigation and the Interior Minister Rado Bohinc gave it instructions to keep him personally up to date on its progress. Coalition Slovenia finds out that the police and Interior Minister reacted at different, much quicker pace in the above – mentioned case than it used to be in the case of the Ljubljana – based Slovenian Investment Bank (SIB),notwithstanding the fact that the public and prosecution bodies were familiar with data on more billions SIT (Slovenian currency) of malversation of Slovenian taxpayers’ money and that some individuals obviously made profit of SIB. Coalition Slovenia hopes that unusual high interest in the case by the the Interior Minister Bohinc and the inspector of personal data protection Bogataj in UDBA files on the Internet was not fuelled by the fear that they are on one of the lists of collaborators of the former secret service SDV.

The attempt of the physical blocking of access to a website is an obvious sign of unknowingness of the Internet functioning and is dammed in advance to failure. Such attempt of censorship on the Internet is absurd, as it can easily be avoided via any of thousands of public proxy servers (for instance, website: www. Anonymizer.com) and also other means. Such censorship will actually only raise interest in UDBA files on the Internet. The attempt to “guard” the Slovenian nation from a part of its own history is senseless and Slovenia will be put by the side of states which systematically block their citizens access to politically – denoted websites, as for example China and North Korea. It is regretfully a proof that a repressive part of the Slovenian authority has not realized yet that the decision for the accession to Euro – Atlantic integrations reflects also the decision for a democratic, open society.

The Social Democratic Party of Slovenia (SDS) has several times pointed to the unsolved problem of the files of the former secret service SDV (state security in the communist system) that were either destroyed or alienated before the first free, democratic elections in 1990. The DEMOS government, the winner of the first free democratic general elections in 1990, found either just empty shelves of the archives of the former secret service SDV in the Gotenica underground bunker or charred documents, that the adherents of the former communist regime had burned in the period between the first and second round of 1990 elections. After the Demos government ceased to hold power, the investigation came to a standstill, nobody has been ever condemned for the demolition or alienation of these files. The Social Democratic Party of Slovenia (SDS), along with the former Slovenian Christian Democrats (SKD), proposed a suitable regulation of this issue in accordance with the Resolution 1096 of the Council of Europe and on the model of other transitional countries. Due to the votes against cast by MPs of the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (LDS) and the United List (ZL), the proposal was rejected. Slovenia thus remains the only post – communist country that has been ignoring this issue in the last decade and has actually violated the basic human rights of people whom UDBA supervised. At the same time former SDV functionaries were enabled to abuse information basis of this state security agency and also thanked to this information they have been promoted to important posts in different state institutions in the last decade. For the reasons mentioned above, Coalition Slovenia proposes once again final and full investigation of happened with the SDV files between 1989 and 1990 and to regulate the issue.

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