Final Ruling Expected in Pro-Life Ads Censorship Case

Case information
Incident date
Country
Slovenia
Place
Ljublijana
Categories
  • Social Hostility / Intolerance
Attack Against
  • Morals
Societal Sphere
  • Governmental
Religious Freedom / Discrimination
  • Discrimination
  • Exclusion (of individuals or ideas)
  • Freedom of Expression
Place of Incident
  • Public Street
Bias Indicators
  • Racial/Ethnic/Gender/Cultural Differences
  • Time/Place/Location
  • Victim/Witness Perception
Reported to Police
  • Unknown
Response of Local Authorities
  • Unknown

In 2018 a state-owned bus company removed advertisements from the pro-life NGO Zavod ŽIV!M on the grounds of them being "intolerant". Although the NGO signed a contract with the company allowing them to display their ads for several months, the company took them down just after a little more than a week. On the ads the messages "We love Life!", "You are not alone", "Step out of Silence" and "I mourn my child", were accompanied by pictures of a happy family, a grieving mother and a woman holding a pregnancy test. In a first ruling the Slovenian equality body called "Advocate of the Principle of Equality" found the company to have acted discriminately towards the NGO. The company challenged the ruling, an outcome is expected in June.

Tomaž Pisk, leading lawyer representing Zavod ŽIV!M statet, “In a free marketplace of ideas, everyone should be able to share messages freely, without fear of censorship. The Zavod ŽIV!M campaigners believe that every human life is valuable. In sharing and advertising this view, they were exercising their fundamental right to freedom of expression. We hope that the court will affirm the findings of the Slovenian Advocate of the Principle of Equality that the removal of the ads was indeed discriminatory”.

Sources