During yesterday, two incidents happened to the detriment of journalists. First, a member of the city council in the Belgrade City Assembly, Slobodan Šolević, threatened Danas journalist Vojin Radovanović, and during yesterday’s protest in Belgrade, N1 reporter Jelena Mirković and cameraman Aleksandar Cvrkutić were attacked.
Earlier this week, journalist and professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, Dinko Gruhonjić, received death threats via Facebook from the person behind the account “Milenko Protić”.
Yesterday at the session of the Belgrade City Assembly, Simo Spasić appeared shouting into the megaphone and then Slobodan Šolević approached him, and Danas journalist Vojin Radovanović, who was reporting from the session, recorded everything.
Šolević asked to delete the recording, which the reporter refused to do, after which the city councilor got in Radovanović’s face with harsh curses and threats. Šolevic threatened the Danas journalist in front of the security guards, who did not react even after the journalist told them that he had been threatened.
The second incident happened last night at the protest regarding the demolition of the old Sava bridge, when N1 reporter Jelena Mirković and cameraman Aleksandar Cvrkutić were attacked while reporting.
“One of the gathered people hit me on the hand, a sponge with the TV N1 label fell on it, one of them hit me on the left shoulder and the cameraman Aleksandar Cvrkutić was attacked. They hit the camera he used to record everything. At that moment, we really felt unsafe. After about 15 minutes, they started insulting us,” said Jelena Mirković in an interview with N1 television’s Dnevnik.
A few days ago, Dinko Gruhonjić received death threats via Facebook messenger from the same person who previously threatened the president of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina, Ana Lalić, who is behind the account “Milenko Protić”.
“Ustasha, you will be slaughtered. … You won’t be long. You will die quickly. Remember that I’m following you like a shadow, it’s a matter of minutes when you’ll be dead,” is the content of the threatening message Gruhonjić received.
The Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS) strongly condemns the threats directed at Vojin Radovanović, the attack on the N1 journalist team and the death threats against Dinko Gruhonjić.
We remind that the number of threats and attacks on journalists has increased in the last month due to high tensions, which were mainly caused by the extremely violent narrative of government representatives, and so far 141 attacks have been recorded in the IJAS database. Direct death threats to journalists are frequent, and physical attacks are more intense and frequent at public gatherings of citizens. Of particular concern is the fact that a large number of plainclothes police officers are present at the aforementioned protests, and that they do not react to attacks on journalists or try to prevent clashes between protesting citizens and those who try to prevent them.
We demand that the competent institutions resolve the mentioned cases as soon as possible, as well as all those that are currently in the investigative stages, to protect journalists, especially at public gatherings, and to enable them to carry out their work unhindered.
Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS)
28.11.2024.