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ACTS announces journalistic investigations of various media because it supports freedom of expression.
Investigation of “Free Europe”
The National Revenue Agency (NRA) and the State National Security Agency (SANS) are interested in who the advertisers are in the three most-watched shows on cable television Eurocom, known for its material critical against the government and the prosecution. These are “EuroDicoff” by Sasho Dikov, “Honestly” by Luba Kulezic and “Weekly with Bereanu” by Vlado Bereanu.
This was confirmed on Wednesday to “Free Europe” by the representative of the manager of “Eurocom” – Petyo Staykov. It suggests that the interest in the services was sparked by an investigation launched by the Special Prosecutor’s Office at a signal from former MEP Nikolay Barekov at the end of last year. He also ran a television column for a short time, but was taken off the air, after which he announced that he had given a signal of “illegal financing” of the media.
Free Europe asked Genka Brezaska, the new spokeswoman for the special prosecutor’s office, to comment on the case, but she did not answer her office phone.
According to Staykov, Eurocom has already sent the investigators all the information requested by them in relation to the inspection of the signal in question. However, the National Revenue Agency and the State Agency for National Security have requested detailed information on the advertisers of the three programs in question, whose hosts are traditionally critical of the Boyko Borissov government and Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev.
“Please provide a report showing which commercials aired on each show.”
“Provide a report showing which ads are running on each show, who the advertiser is: name, contract and date, amount of ad revenue, ad payment, invoice and date, how revenue is distributed between producer and producer artist. “, The tax authorities wrote in a letter to Eurocom dated October 12, cited by” Sega “.
In parallel, SANS requested “information about the companies: advertisers of” Eurocom-National Cable TV “Ltd. and people who are co-contractors under election advertising contracts in the local elections of 2019.” The letter from the agency was signed by the deputy. its president Nedyalko Nedyalkov.
Petyo Staykov told Free Europe that the media would provide the requested data to the tax authorities. However, he described it as strange that the services decided to request detailed information on television advertisers months after they were provided with all the requested documents in connection with the Barekov signal inspection.
“In this way, looking for a calf under the ox is a form of harassment from both the media and journalists, because it is not normal for a person to work while there are some strange inquiries from institutions, including the SANS, the prosecution and the National Revenue Agency, “Staykov said. .
He is convinced that these actions by the tax authorities and SANS will undoubtedly affect “Eurocom” advertisers and they will think about next time when they have to decide whether to advertise on this television. When asked whether the state could control the content of certain media through such inspections, Staykov said that cases like this explain why Bulgaria is ranked 111 in the Reporters Without Borders ranking for freedom of expression.
“Our advertising market is about 10 times smaller than in Hungary, for example. This leads to dependence on a large part of the Bulgarian media, which must take into account people who give money outside the advertising business. : political projects, oligarchs. It also leads to dependence on the state, which is also a major advertiser with money for European programs and public procurement. “When you take money from such an advertiser or its owner is associated with a project of this It kind of serves his benefit and this kinda kills his mouth on freedom of speech, “Staykov added, adding that this also creates” an opportunity for the indirect influence of various verification structures. “
“Do you understand the effect it will have on television when the NRA catches up with its advertisers?” This is done to destroy it financially. “In exactly the same way, things started with Bivol a year and a half ago,” Asen Yordanov, the owner of the Bivol research site, told Free Europe.
Like Eurocom, its means have also been of interest to the Special Prosecutor’s Office since last spring. Although Yordanov has so far not been officially notified of what the investigators suspect, he has learned that they are seeking witnesses to testify that they are extorting people from Bivol for money.
“The specialized prosecutor’s office for about a year and a half – they are pressuring people to testify against us, etc. We are not informed, but indirect information has reached us about how different people call them in the special prosecutor’s office, question them and They make them testify that “Buffalo” is an organized crime site where we pressure people for money and nonsense. Absolute slander circulating in the media around (Delyan) Peevski, “Yordanov said.
According to him, together with his wife they have already been the subject of inspections and audits by the State Financial Inspection Agency (PFIA) and the National Revenue Agency. However, the pressure of the services is not just on his family, but also on the people his wife has worked with in recent years.
“I am a victim of these repressions – (Sotir) Tsatsarov initiated them, and (Ivan) Geshev took them and developed them. The institutions in Bulgaria do not fulfill their basic powers, as it is presumed, to protect and enforce the law, but they serve as executors of the ruling clique and act with the funds of a mafia organization. […] The bad thing is that when they persecute, they persecute not only the object of self-mutilation, but everyone who has had relations with him. This is a typical Stalinist practice: everyone who has had relations with you must be repressed and you must be completely isolated, “said the owner of Bivol.
Last year, Asen Yordanov and his colleagues at the site were directly named by the supervising prosecutor in the NRA-Lakes case, Evgenia Stankova, as the defendant’s accomplices in the hacker attack on the tax database. However, no investigative journalists were charged. That is why Yordanov filed a civil defamation lawsuit against the prosecutor, but the court rejected it, citing her functional immunity as a magistrate.
Bulgaria
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