(ANEM/IFEX) – The date of the ANEM press release was incorrect, “26 November 2001”. The date of the press release should have been “26 December 2001”. The IFEX Clearing House regrets the error. A corrected version of the alert follows: The following is a 26 December 2001 ANEM press release: Attack on Radio Belgrade 202 […]
(ANEM/IFEX) – The date of the ANEM press release was incorrect, “26 November 2001”. The date of the press release should have been “26 December 2001”. The IFEX Clearing House regrets the error.
A corrected version of the alert follows:
The following is a 26 December 2001 ANEM press release:
Attack on Radio Belgrade 202 journalist Vojin Vojinovic
In its press release today, the Association of Independent Electronic Media protests strongly against yesterday’s attack on Radio Belgrade 202 journalist Vojin Vojinovic.
Vojinovic was attacked outside his home by two unknown assailants at around 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, sustaining serious injuries to his body and head. In a statement for Radio B92, Nebojsa Spajic, the editor in chief of Belgrade 202, expressed his bitterness at such a violent act: “This concrete case is proof that the political tensions in our state, in our society, have become too intense, since in the attack on our colleague Vojinovic, the assailants accused him of being a member of a party of the former regime.” Vojin Vojinovic is a journalist on an entertainment program and is not a member of any political party. In a press release today, Radio Belgrade 202 said that the editorial staff had received a telegram containing a warning prior to the attack on Vojinovic.
The Association of Independent Electronic Media welcomes the urgent meeting called in the Serbian Interior Ministry, during which senior members of the criminal police unit told Vojinovic and Spajic that tracking down the attackers would be an absolute priority. ANEM insists the police regularly inform the public on the results of the investigation, as in other cases of threats made against journalists, since there has been a tendency in the past to neglect them.
ANEM points out the danger that due to inadequate reform and insufficient movement away from the policy of the previous regime, journalists are being targeted as public personalities with their own actual or supposed political affiliations. ANEM calls on journalists, the media and professional associations to stand by their colleague from Radio Belgrade 202, and for the state bodies to finally face the questions of responsibility for what has happened to this country in the last ten years.
Veran Matic
ANEM Chairman