ProtectDefenders.eu has been informed that on December 4, 2024, the environmental rights defender Sunčica Kovačević was due to appear at the Basic Court in Sokola regarding the defamation lawsuit initiated by BUK d.o.o, which is owned by the Belgium-based company Green Invest. Fellow environmental WHRD Sara Tuševljak has also been charged and attended her primarily hearing with Sunčica Kovačević on April 25 2023. She is still waiting for a summons for her hearing.
The two woman environmental rights defender are part of an informal civil initiative “Stop building small hydro-power plants on Kasindolska river”. They have been speaking out against the damaging human rights and environmental impacts linked to the construction of hydro-power plants and showcasing the risks through demonstrations, legal actions, press conferences and photo exhibitions. The civil initiative gained more than 2,000 signatures against the construction of the hydro-power plants and support from the mayors of all three affected municipalities objecting to the construction of small hydro-power plants on the Kasindolska river.
From 21 January 2022 to 30 June 2022, the women environmental rights defenders Sunčica Kovačević and Sara Tuševljak received three defamation lawsuits and warnings by company BUK d.o.o. The SLAPP suits (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) were filed against the environmental rights defenders as a result of their public campaign against the environmental impact of the company’s hydro-power plants. The trial has been ongoing since October 2022.
During the preliminary hearing, the Court approved the request of BUK d.o.o/Green Invest for experts to be appointed to examine the sites where the hydro-power plants were planned to be built. Though, the experts only visited the site more than a year after their assignment and two and a half years after the flooding of Kasindolska river. The significant amount of time passed between the events and the expert visit raises doubts about the effectiveness of their assessment of the situation and the impact which the planned hydro-power plants might have had two and a half years earlier.
The lawsuits against the women environmental rights defenders Sunčica Kovačević and Sara Tuševljak are highly concerning and present the characteristics of Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation (SLAPP), which are increasingly used against human rights defenders in the region.
