(CPJ/IFEX) – On March 19 1998, at least two television cameramen working for Western agencies were beaten by plainclothes policemen while attempting to film mass demonstrations in Prishtina. Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian camera operator working for Reuters TV, was attacked from behind as he shot footage of a weeping Albanian woman who said she had […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – On March 19 1998, at least two television cameramen working for
Western agencies were beaten by plainclothes policemen while attempting to
film mass demonstrations in Prishtina. Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian camera
operator working for Reuters TV, was attacked from behind as he shot footage
of a weeping Albanian woman who said she had been struck by police during a
mass rally. Protsyuk fell to the ground and his video camera was smashed.
His assailants repeatedly punched him in the face until his producer, Glen
Felgate, managed to pull him away. He suffered minor injuries.
**Updates IFEX alerts of 2, 11, and 20 March 1998**
Michel Rousez, a cameraman for French-language Belgian Radio-Television
(RTBF), was also assaulted on 19 March while covering a demonstration near
the University of Prishtina. He was hospitalized as a result of the
incident. The Associated Press reported that two other journalists working
for Western agencies were attacked that day, but their correspondent in
Prishtina had no details (see IFEX alert of 20 March 1998).
Background Information
The incidents are the latest in an escalating round of violence and
intimidation against journalists and media organizations attempting to cover
the violent crackdown against Albanian separatists in Kosovo launched two
weeks ago. At least six journalists were beaten covering public protests
against the crackdown on 2 March, among them Agron Bajrami, a cultural
editor at the Albanian-language daily “Koha Ditore”. That day, the
independent newspaper’s Prishtina offices were ransacked and several staff
members were beaten. Police searched the office for tapes of police
brutality against demonstrators filmed by the paper’s cameraman, Fatos
Berisha, who fell out its second-story window as he fled from them. He was
hospitalized with a broken leg. Since then, reporters from “Koha Ditore” and
other news media have been threatened and harassed while covering
demonstrations. “Koha Ditore” has endured several random financial
inspections by various government agencies over the past two weeks.
Reporters and camera crews were barred from areas where the police raids
took place for several days (see IFEX alert of 2 March 1998).
On March 10-11, the editors of five independent Belgrade dailies were
summoned for questioning by Mjedrak Tmusic, the Belgrade city prosecutor, in
apparent response to their coverage of the crackdown. Tmusic accused the
editors of “Danas”, “Blic”, “Dnevni Telegraf”, “Demokratiya” and “Nasa
Borba” of promoting terrorism in the predominantly Albanian region of Kosovo
by referring to the Albanians killed by police as “victims” in their
headlines. Serbian authorities and their media outlets openly called on the
press to provide exclusively official interpretations of events and use
ethnic slurs in their discussion of Albanians–a fact reminiscent of the
hate speech campaigns used by the regime to foment conflict in Bosnia (see
IFEX alert of 11 March 1998).
Recommended Action
Send appeals to authorities:
freedom,
and only serve to further isolate them from the community of nations
on 7 December, 1996 to support press freedom in the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia
Appeals To
His Excellency Slobodan Milosevic
President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Fax: +381-11-656-862
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
