Pauline Ades-Mevel

International media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, RSF, has called on the Serbian authorities to investigate how much surveillance goes on in the country - after the Serbian news agency Tanjug on February 16 published a response written by the Defence Minister to a never-published opinion piece by a former defence minister.

At the meeting they held at 2 Dondukov street, Head of State Rumen Radev and Christophe Deloire, Secretary General of "Reporters Without Borders" discussed the state of the media environment in Bulgaria, the public trust in the media, the professional standards in journalism, the models of funding the Bulgarian media and the approaches to defending the independence of the editorial policy.

Reporters Without Borders said in a statement on Tuesday that a series of threatening messages sent to Croatian journalists recently were intended "to attack, intimidate and smear journalists to the point of dissuading them from pursuing their mission to report the news".

Democracy is on a knife edge in Central and Southeast Europe as authoritarian alternatives enter the mainstream and populists erode vital checks and balances on power — not least free media.

In a press release, the organization said they were sentenced for Serbian newspaper editor Slavko Curuvijas murder in 1999, and urged the authorities "to pursue the investigation in order to identify and punish the person who ordered the murder."

The organization said in a press release that the incident happened last weekend, while those who stormed the premises did so "to protest against its biased coverage and try to make their voice heard."

The organization said this in a press release issued after "a wide-ranging discussion with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic at the presidential palace in Belgrade" on Monday, and added: