HASH(0x8962f80) **New case and update to IFEX alerts of 13 January and 12 January 1999, 20 October and 18 August 1998** (AMARC/IFEX) – The following is a statement by the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) distributed in its entirety by AMARC: ANEM press release CITY RADIO’S OWNER FOUND GUILTY HUMORISTIC WRITER DETAINED DURING INVESTIGATION […]
HASH(0x8962f80)
**New case and update to IFEX alerts of 13 January and 12 January 1999, 20
October and 18 August 1998**
(AMARC/IFEX) – The following is a statement by the Association of
Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) distributed in its entirety by AMARC:
ANEM press release
CITY RADIO’S OWNER FOUND GUILTY
HUMORISTIC WRITER DETAINED DURING INVESTIGATION
January 18, 1999
In a hearing at the Nis Municipal Court today, Nikola Djuric, the owner of
City Radio in Nis, was pronounced guilty of illegal possession and operation
of a radio station under Article 219 (1) of the Serbian Criminal Law and
sentenced to 12 months’ probation with a 2-month suspended prison sentence.
ANEM protests this verdict sternly as the judge has disregarded the
defence’s argument that the state authorities had not honoured their
obligation to allocate frequencies and to announce their decision with
regard to the station’s application in the frequency allocation tender. The
court also disregarded the fact that the Yugoslav Telecommunications
Ministry’s banning order against City Radio is being contested at the
Yugoslav Federal Court.
City Radio and ANEM will appeal this court ruling.
ANEM warns that this case has introduced a dangerous precedent which enables
further intimidation of owners of independent stations who for months now
have been waiting for the Yugoslav Telecommunications Ministry to decide on
their applications in the February 1998 frequency allocation tender. Over
200 owners of broadcast media outlets may face prison sentences in a similar
manner.
After a series of enormous fines that have wrought havoc on a number of
media outlets and their owners, the authorities have moved on to passing
prison sentences as the most radical mode of intimidation and punishment.
In addition to the demand for the abolishment of the new Serbian Law on
Public Information, ANEM calls on all relevant groups at home and abroad to
insist that radio and television stations which have tendered for
frequencies should be legalised and that criminal prosecution of their
owners should stop.
On January 15, Boban Miletic, the author of a book of aphorisms titled “Weep
Serbia, [Our] Motherland!”, was arrested in the town of Knjazevac in eastern
Serbia. After a three-day detention, he was handed to the Zajecar district
attorney with a motion to charge him under Article 157 of the Yugoslav
Criminal Law for exposing the state and the president to ridicule. The
investigative judge in Zajecar launched an investigation, ordering a 30-day
detention of Miletic.
ANEM is alarmed that both the police and the investigative judge in this
case deemed it necessary to keep the accused in detention during the
investigation, thus increasing pressure on him. ANEM believes such a
decision is gratuitous and ungrounded, as all facts about the possible
offence are already known: the book was published on December 18, 1998 and
had been registered at the National Library of Serbia even earlier.
ANEM therefore urges the court to reconsider its decision to keep Miletic in
detention and, by enforcing the positive local regulations as well as the
universal democratic standards pertinent to the admissible level of
criticism of the regime and its representatives in an artistic form,
pronounce Miletic not guilty. ANEM calls on all organisations engaged in the
protection of human rights and freedoms to action.
