Journo who felled the Slovak government

An investigative journalist, Holcova’s works have unmasked the brutal murder of her colleague and triggered the downfall of the Slovak government in 2018. 
Pavla Holcova
Pavla Holcova

KOCHI: When I met Pavla Holcova outside the Water Metro’s newly-built High Court boat jetty, she looked very much like a foreign tourist exploring Kochi on a bright Sunday morning. She is different, though. An investigative journalist, Holcova’s works have unmasked the brutal murder of her colleague and triggered the downfall of the Slovak government in 2018. 

Pavla, who oversees nine journalists at the Czech Centre for Investigative Journalism, an independent news outlet she founded in 2013, was in Kochi to attend the three-day Global Media Festival. ‘The Killing of a Journalist’, which probed behind-the-scenes events including the police files of the murder investigation, uncovering the deep-rooted corruption at the highest levels in Slovakia, premiered at Ernakulam Town Hall. 

While working with her Slovak colleague Jan Kuciak on links between the Italian mafia and the Slovak government, the devastating news hit her. Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova were murdered. Not one to get dejected, Pavla decided to proceed with the unfinished work.

“It was going on at the same time. When we were doing the documentary, the government just collapsed, and people went to the streets, they were protesting, demanding the changes (following the murder of Kuciak and his fiancee),” she says. 

I ask her whether she, too,  faced threats as we enter the Water Metro ferry taking the Global Media Festival delegates on a detour of the Kochi backwaters. “All the time. It’s part of the job. The threats are still there,” says Pavla. 

“The politicians claim I’m the CIA, I was involved in the assassination, and I did it as part of a CIA plot to overthrow the government.” How does she react to such allegations? “I just don’t react. I just do my job,” she says. How does one know if the country is falling into corruption, drugs, and the mafia? Pavla says the documentary ‘The Killing of a Journalist’ gives a peek. 

“If you want to understand, it’s there in the film: what are the symptoms? What are the red flags of a mafia state? and what should you keep an eye on as a journalist?” she says. “If it’s happening, then it’s really bad.”For her hard-hitting reportage, Pavla was presented with the 2021 Knight International Journalism Award, by the International Center for Journalists. 

She says it’s been five years since the murder, and a big fear haunts her. “There will be elections (in Slovakia) at the end of September. It seems that the old government is coming back to power,” says Pavla. “I don’t want to guess, because it’s so depressing. I want to keep my hope.”

What’s brewing? 

It will be an about hardcore organised crime and the cocaine trade in Europe. For this, she will be associating with other journalists in Serbia, the Balkans, Spain, and the Netherlands. “The work has started,” says Pavla. “Another three months, and it’s going to be a project, where there will be video texts and graphics and once it’s out, it’s accessible.”

Mighty pen 

Pavla Holcova is the founder of the Czech Centre for Investigative Journalism, an independent outlet that does a cross-border investigation on organised crime and its impact on the Czech Republic and Slovakia. She also serves as the Central Europe editor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. She has contributed to several investigative reports, including the Panama Papers, Pandora Papers, and the Pegasus Project.

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