SOFIA (Bulgaria), December 14 (SeeNews) – The Association of European Journalists (AEJ) – Bulgaria said on Thursday it is deeply concerned over the attempts to repress publishers of media that are critical of the authorities.
“With its actions in respect to the owners of Economedia, the Commission for Illegal Assets Forfeiture (CIAF) leaves an impression of arbitrariness, with a state institution ready to exceed by far its powers and the provisions of the law so as to punish media which cause discomfort to the powerholders,” AEJ–Bulgaria said in a statement.
On Tuesday, the CIAF said it had frozen assets worth over 199 million levs ($119.5 million/101.7 million euro) of Ivo Prokopiev, one of the owners of media group Economedia, in connection with a probe into the privatisation of mineral mine Kaolin. The frozen assets include Prokopiev’s stake in Economedia – the publisher of business daily Capital and news website dnevnik.bg.
Kaolin was privatised in 2000. Twelve years later, in 2012, the company’s majority owner, Alpha Finance Holding, sold its 67.32% stake in 2012 to Germany’s Quarzwerke. At end-2012, Prokopiev held a stake of over 25% in Alpha Finance Holding, according to the company’s 2012 annual financial statement.
Speaking at a news conference later on Tuesday, Prokopiev dismissed all accusations.
For its part, AEJ-Bulgaria said that although the attack is aimed at Prokopiev and not directly at Economedia, it can be assumed that it has been provoked by reports in the media group’s publications,
The organisation recalled that the owner of another local daily critical of the government - Sega - recently said he had been "advised" by the country's chief prosecutor to not put at risk his business.
AEJ-Bulgaria also said that it is following closely the progress of a probe into the incomes of two TV journalists, which was accompanied by an attack against them in media affiliated to Delyan Peevski, MP from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms.
"As these alleged actions on the part of the institutions against media or media owners are being preceded by a massive attack on the part of their competitors, the logical question arises if the state institutions themselves are not under pressure," it commented.
Earlier this year, non-governmental organisation Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said media freedom in Bulgaria was at the lowest level among the EU countries due to an environment dominated by corruption and collusion between media, politicians, and oligarchs. RSF specifically mentioned Peevski, "a former head of Bulgaria’s main intelligence agency and owner of the New Bulgarian Media Group" which has six newspapers and controls nearly 80% of print media distribution.
"The government’s allocation of EU funding to certain media outlets is conducted with a complete lack of transparency, in effect bribing editors to go easy on the government in their political reporting or refrain from covering certain problematic stories altogether," RSF added.
Peevski, whose appointment as national security chief for a day in 2014 triggered widespread protests against corruption, has also been allegedly affiliated with collapsed Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank), Bulgaria's largest telecom operator by revenue, BTC, as well as with various businesses that have been winning large public contracts.
(1 euro=1.95583 levs)