Volkswacht Bodensee - Balkan journalists battle deluge of malicious lawsuits

Aleksandar Sapic is demanding 100,000 euros ($105,000) in damages from the investigative news site where Markovic works -- an enormous sum for such a case in the Balkans.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) -- one of the best outlets of its kind in Eastern Europe -- fears they could go bankrupt if they lose.

The case is far from uncommon. Serbia is bottom of the class in the region for abusive lawsuits designed to muzzle the media, according to the Europe-wide legal watchdog CASE.

It says SLAPPs -- or strategic lawsuits against public participation -- are being increasingly used by the rich and powerful to bully and silence journalists, activists and NGOs.

Sapic, a member of the governing right-wing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), sued BIRN, claiming two articles about alleged corruption involving two of his properties damaged his reputation and caused him mental anguish.

While the mayor insists he is only defending himself, BIRN and rights groups argue that the lawsuits are blatant SLAPPs.

"The deployment of abusive lawsuits (SLAPPs) is a growing trend in the Balkans," Pavol Szalai, head of the Europe desk of media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), told AFP.

A string of other outlets in Serbia, including the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK), are also facing highly questionable lawsuits, with journalists in neighbouring Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina saying they too are being targeted.

- Psychological pressure -

Activists say SLAPPs are designed to cow critics with the threat of having to mount a long and costly legal defence.

"The biggest problem is psychological, knowing that it will drag on for who knows how long," Markovic said.

"It's stressful for the entire office."

Investigative Reporting Lab (IRL) in neighbouring North Macedonia has already gone through what BIRN and Markovic are now facing.

It was sued for defamation by the country's former deputy premier Kocho Angjushev, a businessman who was blacklisted for corruption by the US last year.

He sued only for symbolic damages of one euro. But the legal battle drained IRL.

Editor-in-chief Saska Cvetkovska said the real goal was to intimidate and hamstring them.

"We were spending most of our time on crisis management instead of doing our job as journalists. I was diagnosed with PTSD, severe burnout, and anxiety because of this," Cvetkovska told AFP.

Their ordeal ended in legal stalemate, with the court ruling that IRL was not a media outlet but an NGO, and should not have published such content.

The decision sparked protests and a furious reaction from Macedonian journalists.

- Judges need training -

Angjushev nearly won again last month when he and Sapic were nominated for a satirical "Obstructor of Transparency" award by the European Fund for the Balkans.

Instead Sapic shared the rather dubious honour with Tirana's former chief prosecutor Elizabeta Imeraj, who sued a journalist after he reported the threats he got for his coverage of her vetting process.

The mock contest is meant to highlight the SLAPP problem in the Balkans and prod the courts into action.

"Neither prosecutors nor judges recognise SLAPP in legal proceedings," said Uros Jovanovic of Civic Initiatives, one of the NGOs that organised the competition.

"We have something in our legislation called abuse of rights. This is something we have recognised as a way for judges to identify SLAPP," Jovanovic added, but up to now they have not been using it to counter malicious lawsuits.

Reporters Without Borders has urged Balkan nations to adopt EU guidelines on the issue.

These "include monitoring of SLAPPs, their early dismissal in court, sanctions against their authors, as well as compensation and assistance for the victims.

"Training of judges is also very important as is their independence," RSF's Szalai told AFP.

But if the experience of Croatia, the only Balkan nation to have so far been admitted into the European Union, is anything to go by, the road may be long.

The Croatian Journalists' Association (HND) has counted several hundred lawsuits brought against reporters there.

C.Koch--VB