VZCZCXRO6867
PP RUEHAG RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN RUEHLZ
RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHLJ #0173/01 0800833
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 210833Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY LJUBLJANA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4671
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 LJUBLJANA 000173 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/NCE - TRIM, EUR/PPD - PAPAZIAN, DRL/CRA - 
KNIGHT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV KPAO SI
SUBJECT: SLOVENIA: REACTIONS TO 2005 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 
 
REF: SECSTATE 33794 
 
¶1. (U) SUMMARY.  Reaction to the 2005 Human Rights Report 
was varied.  The GOS reaction contrasted with last year, as 
MFA State Secretary Bozo Cerar called in COM to complain 
about passages in the Report on trafficking in persons, 
rape, and the government's relations with Slovenia's Muslim 
minority.  Prime Minister Janez Jansa's reaction was more 
moderate and stressed the Report's positive evaluation of 
Slovenia.  Media coverage was largely devoted to the section 
on Slovenia, which attracted considerably more attention 
than in previous years.  This was particularly true of the 
Freedom of Speech and Press section, which became part of a 
larger debate by Slovenian journalists and media experts 
about a new law governing the Board of Slovenia's national 
radio and TV broadcaster, RTV Slovenija.  Post encountered a 
wide palette of interpretations -- depending on whatever 
suited the individual interpreting the Report -- from 
Government officials, representatives of political parties 
and journalists.  END SUMMARY. 
 
------------- 
GOS Reaction 
------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Deputy Foreign Minister Bozo Cerar called in 
Ambassador March 8 to express his dismay over the report. 
Cerar took particular exception to the information on 
trafficking in persons.  He pointed out that the NGO Kljuc 
had indeed been fully funded by the end of the year, and 
that to the knowledge of the GOS, no victims had gone 
uncared for.  All potential victims, too had been given 
every opportunity for assistance. (Comment.  Cerar objected 
to the lines: "Kljuc, the country's sole NGO providing 
support to trafficking victims, organized a 3-day training 
for 13 prosecutors. Due to a government budgeting impasse 
for part of the year, Kljuc was forced to close its safe 
house and reported turning away 12 victims during the year." 
In writing the TIP report subsequent to the HRR, Post 
learned that while Kljuc had to close its emergency housing, 
the safe house, funded by the European Commission, remains 
open, and in fact, is currently housing one victim.  Also, 
while Kljuc was not able to assist in person the 12 victims 
mentioned above, it was able to provide counseling over the 
phone.  Kljuc also assisted by phone in helping the police 
on the scene to determine if any of the 12 potential victims 
was actually a victim of trafficking.   The police asserted 
that four were indeed victims and offered them assistance. 
The victims declined to be housed by the police saying they 
felt safe in their current accommodation.) 
 
¶3. (SBU)  Cerar also took exception to characterizations of 
some problems, such as the incidence of rape in Slovenia and 
the issue of the land purchase for the mosque.  The 
Ambassador took great care to go over certain passages with 
the Deputy FM, and to explain our intentions in reporting 
them the way we did versus his interpretation of what was 
being said. 
 
¶4. (U) Subsequently, Prime Minister Janez Jansa adopted a 
different tone, stating that "The Human Rights Report 
resembles the previous ones; on the whole, the Report is 
extremely positive. The Government has strived to eliminate 
these problems [mentioned in the Report]. If the state of 
human rights in Slovenia were compared to the state of human 
rights in the country that authored the Report, [the state 
of human rights in Slovenia] would be assessed as 
considerably better." 
 
¶5. (U) Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) deputy Branko Grims 
claimed he was content with the report and particularly 
pleased with the statement that "the media were active and 
independent but did not express a broad range of political 
views," which he interpreted at a press conference as "the 
media [in Slovenia] were independent, indeed quite 
independent, they were active, but did not present a wide 
spectrum of political views.  To put it simply: the media in 
Slovenia are absolutely free, but not as plural as all of us 
would like."  (NOTE: Grims' press conference featured the 
above-quoted sentence from the Report in approximately 72- 
font letters.  END NOTE.)  In Grims' opinion, the above- 
quoted sentence "confirms that first steps were made in the 
right direction last year [with the passage of the law on 
national radio and television]." 
 
¶6. (U) In the opinion of the Human Rights Ombudsman, Matjaz 
Hanzek, "the report is nice [towards Slovenia], but less so 
than in previous years."  Hanzek also noted that the Report 
confirmed the assessments made by his office. 
 
LJUBLJANA 00000173  002 OF 003 
 
 
 
 
-------------------- 
Opposition Reaction 
-------------------- 
 
¶7. (U) Initial reactions to the Report by the leading 
coalition were reserved: the Slovenian Democratic Party 
(SDS) did not wish to comment; New Slovenia (NSi) noticed 
some constants which repeated themselves every year, and 
emphasized that the Government worked hard on resolution of 
the "erased" issue, while asylum policy was being adjusted 
to European standards. 
 
¶8. (U) Opposition political parties used the Report to 
criticize the current government.  The Liberal Democratic 
Party (LDS) issued a statement saying it is "concerned with 
the reduction of the field of freedom in society, for it 
leads to the violation of human rights... The report 
confirms our criticism of the government, and assesses those 
negative phenomena ... which we warned about when the law on 
radio and TV was drafted, the anticorruption commission 
eliminated, and asylum standards lowered."  In the opinion 
of Social Democrats (SD), the situation in Slovenia is worse 
than presented in the Report.  The Report fails to caution 
against hate speech, the government's decision to terminate 
financial support for certain NGOs, and verbal attacks on 
the Ombudsman. 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
Media Freedom Section Elicits Heavy Commentary 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶9. (U) The new Chairman of the Program Board of Slovenian 
National Radio and Television, Stane Granda, assured the 
press that he did not feel any pressure from the Government 
or Parliament.  Reacting to the section on media freedoms, 
he said: "Does America want to tell Europe what to do? 
America has exerted cultural and scientific violence upon 
European culture and science. ... I find such reports 
amusing, but I do not identify myself with America in any 
way.  To be honest, I do not pay any attention to American 
assessments." 
 
¶10. (U) The president of the Association of Slovenian 
Journalists, Gregor Repovz, said that the Association "is 
waiting for Prime Minister Janez Jansa, Minister of Culture 
Vasko Simoniti, and Parliamentarian Branko Grims (author of 
the Law on National Radio and TV) to say that the 
Association mislead the State Department; as it had always 
said when an important international institution made a 
remark about any media-related activity of the Slovenian 
government.  In general, we can only unhappily assert that 
assessments in the Report are accurate.  We are unhappy 
because the Report -- in this section -- is more negative 
than in previous years.  It should also be emphasized that 
pressure on the media is growing and that the most recent 
events have not been included in the Report." 
 
¶11. (U) In the opinion of professor of journalism and 
communication Sandra Basic Hrvatin, "the situation in 
Slovenia is as described." 
 
¶12. (U) The media reported extensively about the Report, but 
largely refrained from comment, except to make remarks about 
the state of human rights in the United States. The weekly 
"Mladina," for example, says: "The United States is the 
major violator of human rights. ... However, although it is 
hypocritical that the United States is warning about human 
rights, critical assessments made by the State Department 
are not insignificant and point at the instances in which 
human rights violations really do occur." The daily "Delo" 
opines in a commentary by Janko Lorenci: "Because of its own 
human rights violations, America has lost much credibility 
in recent years.  Nevertheless, we presume that the 
Americans did not advise our government to address the 
purported absence of media plurality by reducing freedom of 
speech, and to do it in [such] a manner." 
 
------------------------- 
Public Diplomacy Efforts 
------------------------- 
 
¶13. (U) The Embassy's public diplomacy efforts included the 
publication of the Report on post's website and sending 
extensive outreach emails with copies of the Report to 
government and civil society leaders.  In addition, poloff 
granted several interviews to the media, including print 
 
LJUBLJANA 00000173  003 OF 003 
 
 
dailies "Dnevnik" and "Vecer" and Radio Slovenia, to 
highlight the important role that the Report plays as an 
informational tool highlighting human rights concerns and 
spurring support for improvements among the public, the 
media, and government.  Seeking to clarify the competing 
interpretations of the Report's views on the new law on 
national radio and TV, poloff stressed that the Report 
itself made no mention of the law's effect on media 
coverage.  Poloff also noted that the presence of political 
and economic pressures on the media had been mentioned in 
previous years' reports and therefore were not new to this 
year's Report.