On Friday, the radical left-wing group called the Protest Assembly (Protestna skupščina), under the leadership of Jaša Jenull, staged several different acts of public lynching and incitement to hate speech in the Republic Square, which should be prosecuted under the rule of law. What will be the next phase of extremists if such actions and discourse continue to be tolerated?
The Protest People’s Assembly, a foreign-sponsored offshoot of the political cyclists that have been haunting the streets of Ljubljana and intimidating the population for two years now, staged another assembly on Republic Square on Friday at 5 p.m., with the intention of “challenging the lies and manipulations of the presidential campaign, and to call for mass participation, in order to stand up for different, better politicians.” They also said that in Thursday’s pre-election debate on the national broadcaster Radio-Television Slovenia, presidential candidate Anže Logar, when asked whether he would attend yesterday’s public debate with the people at Republic Square, replied that he had not received an invitation, which is why the leader of the radical group in question, Jaša Jenul, then visited the headquarters of Logar’s party, the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka –
SDS) on Trstenjakova Street in Ljubljana on Friday morning, to deliver Logar’s invitation.
And what actually went on on Friday? Threats against political opponents and a public lynching. What totalitarians of all colours do and what should have no place in a democratic society.
Will the police take action? At first, some participants put up posters reading “Death to Janšaism,” with the soundtrack of the hateful music of rap artist Nikolovski playing in the background, but then it all escalated when Jaša Jenull, the son of Ljubljana State Prosecutor Hinko Jenull and a colleague of the Ljubljana Mayor Janković, Jožka Hegler, who is on trial for damaging the Ljubljana Housing Fund, took charge of the “event.” Jenull “summoned” Logar and Janez Janša, which meant that the other participants set up large drawings of them and then embarrassed them by asking absurd questions, after which they symbolically dumped them in a trash can, depicted as the “landfill of history.”
The leader of the opposition, Janez Janša, has already responded to the rally on Twitter, writing: “Death! We will send you to Argentina, and some of you will be sent to the shooting range. Threats in the form of songs, pictures and words are echoing right now among the fervent supporters of Nataša Pirc Musar in Republic Square. Once again, the police do not see or hear anything. And the person who points out the threats will be charged with hate speech.”
Is money for the extremists coming from the European Union? Interestingly, this far-left political circle seems to be supported even by the European Union. The Voice of the People (Glas ljudstva) civil initiative is thus a pan-European project, and the European Commission’s representation in Slovenia has not denied that. They even confirmed that the non-governmental organisation Ecas had fulfilled the conditions for co-financing in the field of civic participation in democratic processes. They added that the views expressed in the context of the projects associated with it do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission. It is highly controversial and reprehensible that all of us Europeans have to sponsor such extremist groups as the Voice of the People.
What does that say about our Union of European nations if we are using its money to sponsor subversive far-left elements within a society with deep roots in a totalitarian regime? Probably that European liberals and democrats have no idea about the situation in the individual Member States and do not realise that Slovenia is not Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden or Germany, with its usual European-style social democracy, but that the post-communist countries are mainly offshoots of communist totalitarianism.
Sara Kovač
