(CPJ/IFEX) – Gordana Igric, a prominent Serbian freelance journalist, has been forced into hiding by a series of death threats against her for a recent report broadcast on the U.S. television station CBS about indicted war criminals at large in the Bosnian town of Foce. Igric began receiving threatening phone calls at her Belgrade apartment […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – Gordana Igric, a prominent Serbian freelance
journalist, has been forced into hiding by a series of death
threats against her for a recent report broadcast on the U.S.
television station CBS about indicted war criminals at large in
the Bosnian town of Foce. Igric began receiving threatening phone
calls at her Belgrade apartment after Serbian, Bosnian and
European media broadcast excerpts of her conversation in a Foce
cafe with Janko Janjic, a Bosnian Serb soldier known as “Tuta”
and wanted for rape, that aired on the CBS program “Public Eye
with Bryant Gumbel” on 15 October 1997. On hidden camera, Janjic
told Igric and CBS News producer Randall Joyce that for 5,000 DM
(about US$ 2,800) he would describe how he killed and raped
hundreds of Bosnian Muslims in Foce. He boasted no fear of being
caught by NATO soldiers, who were shown sitting in an adjacent
restaurant.
The telephone calls that Igric received at home shortly after
independent local and foreign media throughout Serbia and Bosnia
broadcast excerpts of her interview featured the sounds of
gunfire and the ticking of a time bomb. The journalist, who is
writing a book about war crimes in Foce, hid in another location
outside Belgrade. However, the threatening telephone calls
continued to plague her in her hiding place, forcing her to move
again with her two children.
Igric received death threats for her reporting on war criminals
in Foce once before. One of her articles, which the “Sunday
Times” and Bosnian Federation newspapers reprinted in July 1996,
prompted threatening phone calls. She had not returned to Foce
until August 1997 to continue her investigations.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to authorities:
Igric for practising her profession
followed her even in hiding lead many to believe that their
perpetrators have access to wiretaps and that she remains under
close surveillance by people sympathetic to indicted war
criminals
international norms of freedom of expression and privacy rights,
as well as provisions on press freedom within the Dayton Peace
Accords
death threats against Igric and to do their utmost to ensure her
safety
Appeals To
His Excellency Slobodan Milosevic
President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Fax: +381-11-656-862Momcilo Krajisnik
Bosnian Serb Representative to
the Collective Bosnian Presidency
Fax: +387-71-472-49
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
