Wielding Twitter, Slovenia s Prime Minister Takes Aim at the Media nytimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nytimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Every Friday in Ljubjana, the capital of Slovenia, hundreds of demonstrators, many on bicycles, gather in front of the parliament to express their anger towards the government of Prime Minister Janez Jansa.
On the day that we film there, the protest is in solidarity with Palestinians and against the government s support for Israel in the latest conflict. However, like every week for the past year, freedom of the press is high on the protest’s agenda.
Sarah Štiglic is one of the protesters and also a journalism student. She tells us that she feels like the government in Slovenia is doing nothing good for them. They are trying to destroy everything. They are trying to destroy our media , she explains. It s something that makes her feel both angry and sad.
A Populist Leader Kicks Off a Culture War, Starting in Museums
Slovenia’s government has replaced the directors of major institutions. But it says “run-of-the-mill artists really have nothing to complain about.”
Prime Minister Janez Jansa of Slovenia in Brussels in October 2020. Artists and activists have protested his cultural policies since he took office in March.Credit.Pool photo by Olivier Hoslet
Published Jan. 27, 2021Updated Feb. 11, 2021
Last March, Janez Jansa, a nationalist politician who has been compared to President Donald Trump, became Slovenia’s leader for a third time. He was previously prime minister from 2004 to 2008, and, briefly, from 2012, until a corruption scandal brought his government down.