(ANEM/IFEX) – The following is ANEM’s weekly report on media repression in Serbia for the week of 25 November to 1 December 2000: ANEM WEEKLY REPORT ON MEDIA REPRESSION IN SERBIA NOVEMBER 25 – DECEMBER 1, 2000. EXPERTS URGE REPEAL OF INFORMATION ACT BELGRADE, November 25, 2000 – At a public discussion in the Federal […]
(ANEM/IFEX) – The following is ANEM’s weekly report on media repression in Serbia for the week of 25 November to 1 December 2000:
ANEM WEEKLY REPORT ON MEDIA REPRESSION IN SERBIA
NOVEMBER 25 – DECEMBER 1, 2000.
EXPERTS URGE REPEAL OF INFORMATION ACT
BELGRADE, November 25, 2000 – At a public discussion in the Federal Constitutional Court on Friday, the representatives of several expert and non-government organisations demanded the repeal of Serbia’s Public Information Act.
The proposal has been before the Constitutional Court for almost two years. Most of the initiators are demanding the repeal of the act as a whole, arguing that it is catastrophic for the freedom of information, the situation in the media and even for the lives of journalists.
The DT Press, the Association of Independent Serbian Journalists, the Yugoslav Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights, the Vojvodina Chamber of Law and the Fund for the Development of Democracy have demanded that the Court assess compensation for damage to publishers and
broadcasters who have been fined under the act.
There have been 67 cases brought against the independent media since the act was adopted in October 1998. A total of 30.6 million dinars in fines has been imposed under the act in that time.
PROTEST OVER RADIO 202 APPOINTMENT
BELGRADE, November 25, 2000 – The Radio Television Serbia Union has appointed Milan Spicek as coordinator of Belgrade Radio 202, despite a majority decision by employees that the job should go to Gordana Gligoric, the radio reports today.
Staff at the radio accuse the union’s Strike Committee of ignoring the wishes of the majority of the employees.
According to the Strike Committee, Spicek will be responsible for the station’s operations from November 21 until an editor-in-chief is appointed.
Gligoric told media that she had nothing against Spicek personally, but added that the editorial staff were resentful of the way in which he had been appointed.
Gligoric, who is a member of the Radio 202 co-ordinating committee set up in the wake of the October 5 revolution, represented the station on the transitional Radio Belgrade editorial board.
MEDIA CONTROLLED BY FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE, SAYS MILOSEVIC
BELGRADE, November 26, 2000 – Few journalists were permitted to report from the Socialist Party of Serbia’s extraordinary congress on Saturday.
However, according to party secretary-general Zoran Andjelkovic, crews from YU Info, BK and Palma television were present in the congress hall.
Slobodan Milosevic, who was re-elected president of the party at the congress, told delegates that Yugoslav media had been bought by foreign intelligence services. He added that their first priority was to generate chaos in the Socialist Party.
Asked whether he expected the Socialists to be successful with him as party leader, the former Yugoslav President answered, “of course”.
He declined to answer when asked whether he expected to be arrested.
A member of Milosevic’s security staff attempted to seize a cassette recorder from a Beta journalist after the question, but was not successful.
PROPRIETARY RIGHTS TO BE RETURNED TO RTV NOVI SAD: REFORMISTS
NOVI SAD, November 27, 2000 – The Central Committee of the Vojvodina Reformists on Sunday called for Radio Television Novi Sad’s proprietary rights to be returned, adding, however, that the Vojvodina Assembly should not take decisions when it was obvious these could not be implemented.
The Assembly moved on November 22 to reclaim proprietary rights to the station which, until recently, was part of the Radio Television Serbia network. A temporary management was appointed, pending a final resolution of the broadcaster’s status.
The Serbian government responded critically, refusing to hand over ownership of the station.
“Our position is that the Vojvodina Assembly’s claim to ownership of RTV Novi Sad is justified, but that the decision to appoint a transitional management has compromised that claim and could undermine confidence in the Assembly,” said a statement released by the government.
The Vojvodina Reformists say that it is important that RTV Novi Sad never again be a regime media house and demand that the station be managed by professional broadcasters and not a “political commissariat”.
POLITIKA CORRESPONDENT SUES FORMER DIRECTOR
POZAREVAC, November 27, 2000 – The Politika media company’s correspondent in the city of Pozarevac has laid charges against the company’s former director, Hadzi Dragan Antic, in a local court.
Simic alleges that Antic had harassed him repeatedly, reducing his salary by one third and imposing fines on him.
In one incident cited in Simic’s complaint, he alleges that he was fined 100 Deutschmarks by Antic over one word in a report.
He is seeking three million dinars (100,000 Deutschmarks) in compensation.
POLICE BEAT HUNGARIAN JOURNALIST
SUBOTICA, November 27, 2000 – Two policemen brutally beat Hungarian journalist Peter Aradi in the Bali Pizzeria in Senta, the local branch of Otpor claims.
The police dragged Aradi from a table where he was dining with friends, throwing him to the floor. They put a gun barrel in his mouth and threatened to kill him. He was then taken to the police station where, says Otpor, he was interrogated, threatened and beaten before being released the following day.
Aradi said in a statement that he was again threatened with a gun while in a police car. Before being released at 10:30 the next morning he was forced to kneel, hold a Bible and told to “say something in Serbian”.
The Senta branch of Otpor has protested to police, demanding that the two officers involved be suspended until the case has been investigated.
LESKOVAC NGO ACCUSES STATE MEDIA OF IGNORING EXODUS
LESKOVAC, November 28, 2000 – A human rights campaigner in Leskovac has accused Radio Television Serbia of ignoring what he describes as an alarming situation in the Serbian municipalities of Bujanovac and Presevo on the Kosovo border.
Dobrosav Nesic told Radio B92 that he had seen hundreds of people in the street carrying firearms, including Kalashnikov automatic rifles. He also described seeing cars and trucks piled with furniture as local inhabitants fled to Vranje and Leskovac.
Nesic, who is president of the Leskovac Human Rights Committee, said that he was alarmed by the similarity of the scene to those which occurred before the war in Kosovo.
RENEWAL MOVEMENT ALLEGES BREACH OF ELECTION REGULATIONS
BELGRADE, November 28, 2000 – The Serbian Renewal Movement has accused Radio Television Serbia of gross breaches of the regulations pertaining to election campaigns.
The party quoted a rule which prohibits the presentation of party activities in news programs, saying that the state broadcaster had given detailed reports on the Democratic Opposition of Serbia’s activities in current affairs programs last weekend.
CURUVIJA WIDOW ON POLICE INTERVIEWS
BELGRADE, November 28, 2000 – The widow of murdered Belgrade publisher Slavko Curuvija has made a complaint to Serbian Justice Minister Sead Spahovic about her interviews with police, following the recent publication of State Security reports on surveillance of Curuvija in the hours before his death.
The Justice Ministry said in a statement today that Branka Prpa had told the minister that she was not happy that she had been interviewed by the same police officers who had interrogated her the day after her husband was gunned down in front of their home. She told him that the police had appeared more concerned about how much she knew than with discovering the facts of the murder.
The statement quotes Spahovic as saying the ministry would demand an explanation from the Public Prosecutor’s Office for the lack of progress in the case.
Curuvija was executed by gunmen outside his home in April last year after having been denounced in government media.
NEW BOARD FOR POLITIKA
BELGRADE, November 28, 2000 – Shareholders of the Politika media company have elected a new director, board of management and supervisory board. The company’s general meeting also verified new appointments by the government, representing public shareholding in the company.
The general meeting appointed the president of the Komercijalna Bank as chairman of directors. Federal Telecommunications Minister Boris Tadic and economist Nebojsa Savic were appointed to the supervisory board as government representatives and Milorad Banzic and Ljubodrag
Cudomirovic as employee representatives.
The shareholders also adopted the supervisory board proposal of Darko Ribnikar as director of the company.
Post Bank representative Dragan Peric and Serbian Electric Company representatives Momcilo Cabalovic and Vlada Filipovic were also elected to the supervisory board.
MARJANOVIC ALLEGES LIBEL
BELGRADE, November 29, 2000 – Former Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic has laid charges against DOS politicians Vladan Batic and Nada Kolundzija Belgrade daily Vecernje novosti and the G17 Plus movement, accusing them of disseminating “false and insulting”
information.
TV KOSOVO STEPS UP BROADCASTS
PRISTINA, November 29, 2000 – Television Kosovo has doubled its daily broadcast from two hours to four, Beta reports.
Launching the new schedule last night, director Midjena Kelmendi said that the station would add programs for children, sports and culture as well as documentary and movie programs to its current affairs programs.
TV Kosovo now broadcasts from 6.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. (Central European Time) both by land transmitter and satellite. Two independent stations, TV 21 and Koha Vision, as well as the private TV AA, also carry the station’s program two hours each day.
JOURNALISTS’ MURDERS IN CONFLICT AREAS FALL
BERLIN, November 29, 2000 – The World Association of Newspapers announced in Berlin today that the number of journalists murdered in war regions throughout the world has dropped dramatically this year, although many more journalists have been assassinated.
In a report to its annual Board meeting in Berlin, Germany, on Tuesday, the Paris-based association said 46 media workers had been killed so far in 2000, compared with 71 in 1999. Seven journalists have died in crossfire in conflict areas, compared with 46 in 1999.
But many more journalists were murdered in 2000 than last year, WAN said. Latin America, with 14 killings, and Asia, with 13, have the highest number of victims. Colombia (8) and Russia (6) remain the most dangerous countries in which to be a journalist.
The World Association of Newspapers Board also heard that at least 83 journalists remain behind bars world-wide; three-fifths of them have been in jail for three years or more. Burma, China, Iran and Ethiopia have the largest number of journalists in jail.
A revolution unfolded in the Yugoslavia media scene with the ousting of Slobodan Milosevic and the election victory of Vojislav Kostunica in late September, says the Association’s report, adding that while the political situation is far from clear, Kostunica has freed two journalists from prison and set aside the notorious Public Information Act.
MEDIA CONFERENCE FOR BELGRADE IN FEBRUARY
BELGRADE, November 30, 2000 – Yugoslav Telecommunications Minister Boris Tadic met representatives of the Wilton Park International Conference Centre in Belgrade on Wednesday.
The minister spoke to Wilton Park representative Chris Langdon, together with the British Embassy’s Sarah Price, about plans to regulate Yugoslavia’s chaotic frequency licensing system.
Wilton Park has agree to hold a conference on media reform in Belgrade in February 2001.
DOS CURBING STATE MEDIA, SAYS RADIO FREE EUROPE
PRAGUE, December 1, 2000 – The state media network Radio Television Serbia is no more objective since Yugoslavia’s October 5 revolution than when it was one of former president Slobodan Milosevic’s main levers of power, said Radio Free Europe in a commentary today.
The station quotes media analysts as comparing the situation ahead of the extraordinary parliamentary elections in Serbia with Russia in 1996 when most Russian media failed to observe the government’s appeal for equal treatment of the opposition, thus ensuring the re-election of President Boris Yeltsin.
Radio Free Europe described DOS as having refused to sign assent to new management at the network in order to keep Socialist Party of Serbia advertising off the air.
This had been done by ruling that parties could not book new air time in the state media until they had paid outstanding debts.
The Socialist Party of Serbia and its former coalition partner, the Yugoslav Left, owe Radio Television Serbia about US$50,000 for airtime during the federal election campaign.
MINE NEWSLETTER EDITOR RESIGNS
BOR, December 1, 2000 – The editor of the Bor Smelter’s magazine, Slavisa Petrovic, resigned yesterday at the demand of his editorial board.
Journalists working on the newsletter protested to the publication’s Board of Management at Petrovic’s appointment by Director Radomir Jovic.
They alleged that he had written comments for the magazine describing Serbia’s democratic forces as “scum, fifth columnists, quislings, foreign mercenaries and scum who were serving the infamous”.
PHONE THREATS FOR JOURNALISTS
ZAJECAR, December 1, 2000 – Journalists at Radio Zajecar, who have opposed the appointment of new directors for the company, said yesterday that they had received anonymous threats by telephone.
The journalists told a press conference in Zajecar that they had opposed the appointment of journalists Biljana Glisic and Irena Jovic-Stanojevic to the company’s new board of management, describing them as “corrupt” and alleging that they had “enjoyed privileges” under the Milosevic regime.