List of Agents of the Former Yugoslav Communist Secret Police UDBA Published Also in a Book
Ponedeljek, 08. september
Records listing over one million people who were either agents of the Former Communist Secret Police UDBA or its supervised persons were published on a website: www.udba.net, on a Thai server. The inspector of personal data protection Bogataj in his verbal and E - mail form of decree ordered the Internet providers to block access of the website www.udba.net. It was for the first time since the first democratic elections held in Slovenia in 1990 and Slovenian independence that such measures had been introduced. It provoked a strong protest by Coalition Slovenia, including the largest opposition Social Democratic Party of Slovenia (SDS) and New Slovenia (NSi). The Coalition Slovenia assessed that the blocking of access to the Internet as inadmissible version of censorship. Moreover, such attempt of censorship on the Internet was absurd, as it was easily avoided via any of thousands of public proxy servers (for instance, web -site: www. Anonymizer.com) and also other means. The attempt to guard the Slovenian nation from a part of its own history was senseless and Slovenia alike China or North Korea, which systematically block their citizens access to politically denoted web - sites. Moreover, censorship actually raised interest in UDBA files on the Internet. That’s why the decision of blocking access to the UDBA Internet was then reversed.
As a result, a special commission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was set up to find out whether the then honorary consul for Australia and New Zealand Dušan Lajovic, who had provided the UDBA records for publication on the Internet, was suitable for further service at this function. The commission actually positively assessed his performance of office and had no complaints with respect of the promotion of good relations between Slovenia, New Zealand and Australia. However, the Government did not extend his term of office running out on June 6. The only reason provided was the age of Dušan Lajovic. He was estimated to be too old, according to a new directive on honorary consuls that was still compiled, so not in force at the time when the Government took such a decision.
Following up the Internet release of records, Dušan Lajovic in August issued a book “Between Freedom and the Red Star”, containing a list of 14,000 people who were former UDBA agents. A part of the Internet list of those persons, who were just supervised by UDBA and were not its active collaborators, is not published. Former communist top politicians, eminent personalities and influential social workers, who worked for communist secret police, do not feel comfortable to see their names published and made known to public. They are endeavouring to minimise the significance of the published records in a book, claiming them as not genuine. There are also two cases of filed lawsuits. One of the former UDBA officier Zdenko Rotar, a former adviser to former Slovenian President Kučan and another one of the daughter of the influential communist politician Josip Vidmar, who claims that Lajovic’s book causes her great moral damage and demands the removal of the book. Her father was allegedly involved in a murder.
Archives of news
Turk: González report needs follow-up
No Right to Same-Sex Marriage under the ECHR
SDS Against the Arbitration Agreement
More ...
