New Media Freedom Campaign Launched in Serbia

Serbian journalists and activists who protested recently over what they called the worsening situation of the free media will meet in Belgrade on Thursday to coordinate a new campaign in defence of media freedom in the country.

The official Facebook group "For Media Freedom" said all the participants at the meeting will sign a "Freedom of the Media Declaration".  

The group called on journalists, editors, activists and citizens on Wednesday to share their video in which, under the hashtag #WhyAmIHere, they explain their reasons for joining a fight for media freedom in Serbia.

Campaign organisers also shared a censored invitation to the event, in which several parts are blanked out, alluding to the alleged de facto censorship of the media.

The gathering follows a protest in which 182 of them temporarily blacked out their websites or went off air on September 28.

"We want to warn the public that freedom of media in our country is running out of breath, and we want to fight together to save it," a joint press release of the participating organisations, including BIRN, said.

Media outlets blacked their websites for one hour carrying the simple message: "This is how it looks without a free media," Supporting print media published a black page.

The protest followed a incident on September 18 when the party of Serbian Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin called the editor of the Serbia's Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, KRIK, Stevan Dojcinovic, a "drug addict".

This was in apparent retaliation for his published investigation into the minister's questionable real estate purchases.

Soon after, Vukasin Obradovic, the founder of the liberal Vranjske novine and former head of the...

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