SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Amnesty International has urged a Belgian-owned hydro-power company to drop defamation charges against young Bosnian activists who publicly criticised the environmental impact of their projects in Bosnia, saying they were baseless.
BUK, a company owned by Belgian-based Green Invest which operates one small hydro-power plant on the Kasindolska river in East Sarajevo with plans to construct another two, has filed three defamation lawsuits against two female activists who have challenged environmental permits granted to the company.
A court hearing in the case against law students Suncica Kovacevic and Sara Tusevljak should commence on Monday in East Sarajevo. BUK is seeking 7,500 euros ($7,301) in damages and has threatened further legal action if the activists continue speaking publicly on the issue.
Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office, said the lawsuits were baseless because they referred to the activists’ public criticism of uncontrolled deforestation and soil erosion that they believed occurred as a result of dam construction on the Kasindolska river near where they grew up.
“Green Invest and their subsidiary in Bosnia should immediately withdraw these lawsuits and allow people to freely debate the impact of their hydro-power plants on the local community,” Geddie said in a statement on Friday.
Jehan Delacroix, Green Invest’s co-founder and CEO, told Reuters the company would not drop the charges after efforts for a dialogue with the activists had failed.
His fellow co-founder Emmanuel Berryer said in a statement that the company respected the law and listened to local residents.
“The defamation suit we have filed is aimed at stopping the defamations against us – corruption, mismanagement, non-compliance with rules and permits, misinformation, enrichment, etc,” Berryer said.
Amnesty International said the lawsuits bear the hallmarks of Strategic Lawsuits for Public Participation (SLAPPs), which seek to silence or intimidate those who publicly criticise those in power, including governments and corporations.
Kovacevic and Tusevljak are part of a larger movement in Bosnia protesting against small hydro-power plants as authorities embrace the technology in an effort to replace aging coal-fired power stations.
Activists were successful in getting legislation to ban the construction of small hydro-power plants through the country’s Bosniak-Croat Federation parliament last July.
The Serb Republic, the other Bosnian region where East Sarajevo is located, also passed legislation in February limiting the size of future small hydro-power plants.
“People of Bosnia-Herzegovina have the right to oppose to small hydro-power plants but you cannot attack existing permits,” Green Invest’s Delacroix said.
($1 = 1.0272 euros)
(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
