IPI condemns banning of Radio B92

(IPI/IFEX) – This IPI alert was received prior to our notification of Radio B92 editor-in-chief Veran Matic’s release from detention: **Updates previous IFEX alerts of 24 March 1999** IPI is strongly condemning the banning of Radio B92 in Belgrade. IPI was informed that Radio B92, the country’s leading independent radio station, was shut down by […]

(IPI/IFEX) – This IPI alert was received prior to our notification of
Radio
B92 editor-in-chief Veran Matic’s release from detention:

**Updates previous IFEX alerts of 24 March 1999**

IPI is strongly condemning the banning of Radio B92 in Belgrade. IPI was
informed that Radio B92, the country’s leading independent radio
station,
was shut down by Yugoslav authorities at 2:50 a.m. on 24 March 1999. Two
technical operatives of the Yugoslav Federal Telecommunications
Ministry,
accompanied by about ten policemen, entered the station’s premises and
instructed its staff to immediately discontinue broadcasts.

Giving no justification, the officials also detained the station’s
editor-in-chief, Veran Matic, and took him to an undisclosed location.

An official note presented to the staff of B92 said that the station was
banned because the strength of its transmitter exceeded the allowed
level of
300 watts, “which constitutes a misdemeanour as defined in Article 141,
Paragraph 1, Point 6.”

IPI regards the move to shut down Radio B92 as the latest in a series of
attempts by the Yugoslav authorities to silence the critical voice of
the
country’s independent and opposition media, and a gross violation of
everyone’s right to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas
through
any media and regardless of frontiers,” as guaranteed by Article 19 of
the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Recommended Action

His Excellency Slobodan Milosevic

President of Yugoslavia

Savezna Skupstina

11000 Belgrade, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Fax: +381 11 636 775

E-mail: slobodan.milosevic@gov.yu