(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned a one-year suspended prison sentence for libel handed down to former “Podrinski Telegraf” editor Milan Milinkovic on 10 February 2005, in the western city of Sabac. The organisation noted that both the United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) oppose the application of prison sentences […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned a one-year suspended prison sentence for libel handed down to former “Podrinski Telegraf” editor Milan Milinkovic on 10 February 2005, in the western city of Sabac. The organisation noted that both the United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) oppose the application of prison sentences for press offences.
“(. . . ) the Serbian government has just released a new draft Criminal Code that would make attacks on a person’s honour and reputation punishable by up to a year in prison, despite the fact that Justice Minister Zoran Stojkovic pledged to decriminalise press offences, in November 2004, before a delegation of OSCE representatives,” RSF said.
The one-year suspended sentence was handed down by municipal court Judge Ivica Lazarevic in response to a libel action brought by Nebojsa Jovanovic, the owner of Medikom, a company that distributes Kodak products in Serbia. The action stems from a March 2002 article about Medikom’s links with former president Slobodan Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and with the Yugoslavian United Left (JUL) party of his wife, Mirjana Markovic.
The judge ruled that the word “relationship” was inappropriate in the context of the article and that Milinkovic should have used the term “cooperation”. The former editor was also fined 100 euros (approx. US$132) and ordered to pay 400 euros (approx. US$528) in court costs. Milinkovic’s lawyer, Branislav Sekulovic, said he would appeal.
The new draft law proposing prison sentences for journalists was made public on 19 February. In cases where a journalist reveals information about a person’s private life that is judged to be damaging to their honour and reputation, the journalist can be given a one-year suspended sentence. The draft Criminal Code also proposes suspended prison sentences of up to six months for libel.
