Former premier targets two TV journalists with sexist tweet

Two women journalists with state-owned RTV Slovenia were the targets of a sexist insult posted this week on Twitter by Janez Janša, who heads the right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), now in opposition, and who was Slovenia’s prime minister twice.

Reporter Eugenija Carl and programme director Mojca Šetinc Pašek “prostitute themselves” on their Facebook page for 30 and 35 euros respectively, Janša said in his below-the-belt tweet on 21 March.

It was prompted by a report on RTV Slovenia’s daily news programme claiming that three senior SDS members had for the past eight months been subscribers to a neo-Nazi Facebook group called “Death Legions.” The group renamed itself “We condemn communism” in the wake of the TV report.

One of the three named SDS members is a European Union human rights official. Another is vice-president of the National Council of the Republic. And the third is a member of the parliamentary commission for security and intelligence services.

All three said they unaware of being subscribers to this Facebook group and suggested that their accounts had been hacked. The allegations came at a time of mounting nationalism exacerbated by the European migrant crisis.

This is not the first time Janša has attacked a journalist verbally. He described the journalist Erik Valencic as a “potential terrorist” in a tweet addressed to the CIA in January 2015. And he attacked journalist Gordana Stojilkovic over her Serbian-sounding first name in January of this year.

The Slovenian media have voiced support for Carl and Pašek, who say they plan to sue Janša.