To serve and to protect your sources

To serve and to protect your sources

The hearing by Slovak police of the Czech journalist Pavla Holcová, who co-operated with murdered Slovak journalist Ján Kuciak on many articles, did not go well. They confiscated her cell phone with data on other sensitive cases, which are not related to Kuciak. The journalist refused to provide codes to the cellphone, but the police said they would try to break through this protection. "I volunteered as a witness, wanting to help the National Criminal Police Agency (NAKA) to investigate the murder of my colleague and friend Ján Kuciak. Three Slovak investigators asked me about the files they had been able to get from Ján's computer. They had an enormous interest in telling them what I knew about VAT fraud in Slovakia and Marián Kočner's business. When I told them that I did not have details of these cases, they did not trust me" said Holcová to the Czech press agency CTK on Wednesday. Ján Kuciak reported extensively on how shady businessmen well-connected to top politicians engaged in VAT fraud, and the controversial businessman Marián Kočner even threatened to find dirt on him and his family.

The Special Prosecutor's Office which is overseeing the investigation said in response to Holcová's statements that she had handed over her phone voluntarily. "We emphasize that the aim of getting part of the communication was only to obtain objective evidence that might help in investigating the crime in question and not to violate the journalist's rights," said the Special Prosecutor's Office's spokeswoman Jana Tökölyová. The incident dealt another blow to the already broken relationship between Slovak journalists and law enforcement agencies. The publishers and editors-in chief of Slovakia's mainstream print, TV and online media issued a common statement criticizing police behaviour in Holcová's case. "The obligation to protect sources is essential for a journalist's work. The current press law imposes an obligation to maintain the confidentiality of the source of information so that the identity of the source cannot be ascertained, and this obligation also explicitly applies to the device that carries the information," reads the statement. The signatories are asking the law enforcement agencies for an explanation as to the legal grounds on which they want to access the data on the Czech journalist's phone. On Thursday May 17th, Ján Kuciak would have turned 28.


Anca Dragu, Photo: Flickr.com/Johan Larsson

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