The Minister of Infrastructure from the Golob government, Alenka Bratušek, is prosecuting Davorin Kopše, a columnist from our media house. She wants to extort a larger sum of money from him, simply because of a tweet on the social network X, which, moreover, was not even aimed directly at her. Kopše had previously also invited interested members of the public to attend the hearing in April, fearing an unfair trial.
Then came another shock. At the last hearing, Minister Bratušek changed the amount of compensation requested. From 1,750 euros to a staggering 6,945 euros, plus interest for late payment.
“Well, today we experienced something akin to a circus at the hearing in court, where I learned that Alenka Bratušek wants even more money. In the Golob government, they apparently want more than just bleeding people dry by cutting wages and raising taxes. They want to raid our individual wallets personally. The request for an increase relates to my summoning the public to a hearing. Her defence has accused me of having no empathy for her ‘suffering’. Geez!!! And these are the defenders of those who had no empathy for those suffering on ventilators and for those who died, while they were opposing anti-Covid measures. Yuck! The verdict will probably come sometime in September,” Kopše wrote on the social network X.
What is Minister Bratušek actually accusing him of?
The Minister of Infrastructure wants more than 6 thousand euros for the following tweet that caused her “emotional distress”: “This is the type of woman you used to find years ago, in discos between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., all lonely. You could take them to a nearby corner,” Kopše wrote, adding the hashtag “arrogant presumptuous women.” Bratušek now believes that Kopše labelled her a “tramp,” but Kopše says he was merely expressing his indignation at her “arrogance”.
This is how Kopše explained his post to the media outlet Žurnal24: “When I posted the tweet, we were facing a pandemic. There was no vaccine yet, and as a disabled person, I felt threatened. I hadn’t left my flat in three months. When the application for tracking contacts with the infected (the StayHealth – OstaniZdrav app) appeared, some politicians, including Mrs Bratušek, opposed it. So, I was outraged. I tweeted the post in question to highlight the arrogance of this lady, who said that she would not install the app because the then-Minister of the Interior, Aleš Hojs, would be able to track her. The most important part of the tweet is the hashtag – arrogant, presumptuous women. And regarding the disco, I was referring to conceited and haughty women (and men) who can’t seem to be able to fit into a certain social environment.” He added that he regretted the Minister’s misperception of the tweet, as “Mrs Bratušek is an influential politician, and her opinion is fatal to people’s lives. Her statements also made the virus more difficult to control.”
As he clarified at the time, the tweet did not refer to the Minister personally at all. He also apologised for good measure, just in case she might have understood it as a personal attack.
Even Bratušek did not take this tweet personally
The fact that Bratušek herself also did not take the tweet in question personally was clear from one of her posts. Namely, on the 28th of October 2020, she wrote: “This is not an attack on me personally, but on all women who dare to stand up for ourselves, for other women and for a better future for all of us!”
Kopše: I will persevere to the end!
Kopše does not expect a conviction, but if one does come, he has announced that he intends to fight to the very last court, even to the level of the European Court of Human Rights, if necessary.
“I expect that she will not succeed, but if she does, I will fight on. She must not succeed. My defence is based on the protection of freedom of speech, on Article 39 of the Constitution, and also on several decisions of the Constitutional Court, the European Court of Human Rights and the Convention on Human Rights. Without freedom of speech, democracy is undermined or does not exist. In any case, Minister Bratušek is misinterpreting my tweet. She claims that I have labelled her a streetwalker, which I have never claimed. Only Alenka Bratušek claims that,” he said in a comment for our media outlet.
Ž. K.
