State must protect journalists against pressure, violence

BELGRADE - The state of Serbia should protect the journalists against pressure, threats and violence, and the perpetrators of the crimes must be exposed and adequately punished, it was concluded at the Wednesday's conference "Who, what, where, when, how - Impunity of crimes against journalists".

The state must not hold back journalists, who are “the eyes of democracy”, stressed the participants of the conference, organized by the Belgrade Center for European Integration.

They warned that the threats and pressure inhibit the freedom of reporting and contribute to self-censorship, while the reaction of the police and the judiciary is lacking.

Gordana Predic, a state secretary at the Ministry of Culture and Information, said that the threats have produced results, as “the self-censorship is widespread, the investigative journalism in not encouraged, and the journalists are withdrawing."

Professor Milan Zarkovic pointed out that Serbia does not have an adequate law on judicial experts, or a good witness protection system, noting that for that reason it is no wonder that in the cases of journalist murders there are no witnesses.

Chairman of the Commission for investigating journalist murders Veran Matic said that 39 journalists from Serbia have been murdered since 1991, including Slavko Curuvija, Dada Vujasinovic and Milan Pantic, 16 employees of the Radio and Television of Serbia who lost their lives in the NATO bombing, while the others were killed or murdered in the armed conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Miroslav Jankovic, National Legal Officer at the OSCE Mission to Serbia, noted that it is encouraging to see the decisive and adequate reaction of the police aimed to provide...

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