BELGRADE, 19.08.2019. – Maja Pavlovic, the owner of Novi Sad-based Channel 9, who has been on a hunger strike for seven days, says she is fine except for light nausea she feels when getting up.
Speaking for N1, Pavlovic said she is fighting for the court processes in which she seeks justice to be done adequately.
“I addressed ministries, then the Prime Minister because the ministries said they were not in charge. Then we thought the Prime Minister would coordinate that. We heard of the initiative by (Serbian President Aleksandar) Vucic to meet with us and hear about the problem. We’re also initiating a meeting with Vucic to hear the ideas towards the court decision,” she said.
Pavlovic first went on a hunger strike in May this year, claiming that her TV channel and many other media outlets in Serbia were threatened because of the inaction of the state institutions.
Among her nine demands, she requested from Novi Sad Mayor Milos Vucevic, of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) led by President Aleksandar Vucic, to stop discriminating the independent Channel 9 which existed 20 years and provide it with equal access to state media funds.
Pavlovic had ended a 23-day long hunger strike after meeting PM Ana Brnabic, who then said the hunger strike was “serious blackmail.”
Now after she started a new strike, Pavlovic said a new meeting with Brnabic would bring nothing good because she said she did everything she could do.
Pavlovic also said she was maintaining the contact with State Secretary Aleksandar Gajovic.
“Gajovic contacted me this morning to ask me how I am. He told me he had no information from the President’s cabinet, he asked me to end the strike because the health comes first but I won’t give up until doctors tell me so,” she stressed.
“Something’s wrong in the judiciary, all the procedures in which the state seeks its rights are efficiently done, which means that the state can function. That’s why it bothers me why the procedures in which I seek my own rights last so long,” said Pavlovic, adding she was sure that many citizens of Serbia are facing the same problems.
