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CJA condemns death threats against journalist Nataša Božić Šarić

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ZAGREB, 12.12.2017. – Croatian Journalists’ Association (CJA) strongly condemns death threats and insults against our colleague Nataša Božić Šarić. After the show she regularly hosts on Sunday she received many insults and threats through social networks. Threats were reported to the police and CJA calls relevant institutions to immediately find perpetrators and punish them.

After the TNT show on N1 TV, talking about weekly events, Nataša Božić Šarić, as she reported herself and media took over, she received a threat: “You should be decapitated, you motherfucker“. It is supposed that the reason was conversation about general Praljak and her question: Should he be stripped of his medals.

By this latest incident we have faced chain of pressure on journalists in Croatia, including threats by physical attacks, death threats and even attempted murders.

In last few years CJA has recorded 40 cases and just some of them have been sanctioned or under court procedures. In most of these cases perpetrators did not hide their identity. About other cases neither CJA nor attacked journalists have received any information; not even if investigations have started.

We shall, as usually, inform Croatian public, international journalist’s organizations and other organizations dealing with protection of media freedom about this latest attack. We call for immediate and efficient actions from relevant Croatian authorities. .

We are repeating, and we will go on doing it, that there is no political determination to deal with attacks against journalists. Even more, some of politicians insult journalists by their moves and accept attacks against them. That gives relevant authorities clear message that journalists’ protection should not be taken seriously.

CJA condemns death threats against journalist Nataša Božić Šarić

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ZAGREB, 12.12.2017. – Croatian Journalists’ Association (CJA) strongly condemns death threats and insults against our colleague Nataša Božić Šarić. After the show she regularly hosts on Sunday she received many insults and threats through social networks. Threats were reported to the police and CJA calls relevant institutions to immediately find perpetrators and punish them.

After the TNT show on N1 TV, talking about weekly events, Nataša Božić Šarić, as she reported herself and media took over, she received a threat: “You should be decapitated, you motherfucker“. It is supposed that the reason was conversation about general Praljak and her question: Should he be stripped of his medals.

By this latest incident we have faced chain of pressure on journalists in Croatia, including threats by physical attacks, death threats and even attempted murders.

In last few years CJA has recorded 40 cases and just some of them have been sanctioned or under court procedures. In most of these cases perpetrators did not hide their identity. About other cases neither CJA nor attacked journalists have received any information; not even if investigations have started.

We shall, as usually, inform Croatian public, international journalist’s organizations and other organizations dealing with protection of media freedom about this latest attack. We call for immediate and efficient actions from relevant Croatian authorities. .

We are repeating, and we will go on doing it, that there is no political determination to deal with attacks against journalists. Even more, some of politicians insult journalists by their moves and accept attacks against them. That gives relevant authorities clear message that journalists’ protection should not be taken seriously.

RTCG employees joined to Trade Union of Media of Montenegro

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PODGORICA, 12.12.2017 – Trade Union of National Broadcasting Service (RTCG) joined to the Union of Free Trade Unions of Montenegro (USSCG) and the Trade Union of Media of Montenegro (SMCG), as a representative branch trade union in media area.

Thus, the Trade Union of Media of Montenegro almost doubled its membership. So far SMCG gathered around 300 members from approx. 20 Montenegrin private media and local public broadcasters, and with the arrival of colleagues from RTCG Trade Union this figure has almost doubled. SMCG is now officially the largest branch union in this area and it gathers almost 50% of the total number of media employees in Montenegro.

We wish warm welcome to our colleagues form RTCG who recognized SMCG and USSCG as organizations that can help them in their work, and we hope that jointly we will improve their economic position and labor rights as well as the status of all employees in other Montenegrin media. Media workers in Montenegro must be solidary, organized in trade unions and introduced with their rights because only thus we can make influence on our working conditions and improved them.

SMCG Main Board

 

Do not discriminate RTV Pljevlja employees

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PODGORICA, 10.12.2017 – On the occasion of the strike of the majority of employees in RTV Pljevlja, the Union of Free Trade Unions of Montenegro and the Trade Union of Media of Montenegro appeal to management of Pljevlja Municipality to urgently start to deal with problems and protection of employees and their families’ existence.

Namely, it is unbelievable that employees of the local public broadcaster Radio Television Pljevlja, whose founder is Pljevlja Municipality, have not been paid five salaries, opposite to their colleagues employed in municipal bodies and institutions who received salaries regularly. Therefore, the municipal management must stop to ignore the situation and problems which RTV Pljevlja faces with and whose employees have been striking already 24th day, producing only mandatory program required for the minimum working process. We especially call upon President of Pljevlja Municipality, Mr. Mirko Dačić, to fulfill his promise given to the President of Montenegro, Mr. Filip Vujanović who announced that Municipal President told him that he is open for establishing good communication and overcoming the problem. We remind that President Vujanović, during his visit, on the occasion of the Day of Pljevlja Municipality, November 20, 2017, appealed to him to “establish good communication and overcome problems in RTV Pljevlja”. President Vujanović also emphasized the importance of local media and his opinion that local media is extremely valuable, highly watched and listened, and that it is important to announce the primary interest of citizens through the local media.

Therefore, we demand from municipality to end discrimination of RTV Pljevlja employees and to establish social dialogue with the Strike Committee in order to prevent the announced radicalization of the strike.

Secretary General,

Srđa Keković

President of Trade Union of Media of Montenegro,

Marijana Camović

 

 

Serbian Journalist Threatened After Grilling Activist

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BELGRADE, 10.12.2017. – N1 journalist Marija Antic received death threats on social networks after quizzing French-Serbian activist Arnaud Gouillon about his role in far-right movements.

A Serbian journalist Marija Antic has said she received death and rape threats after grilling a far-right French activist Arnaud Gouillon about his views and activism.

“The job of a journalist is to try to come to the truth. It’s for the audience to accept this truth or not,” Antic told BIRN.

During her December 2 interview with French-Serbian citizen Arnaud Gouillon, known best in Serbia for his advocacy for Serbs in Kosovo, Antic asked him about his past involvement in the far-right Identity Movement in France.

Gouillon said he had been a member of the Movement in the past but denied any current connection with it.

Two days later, VICE website revealed that Gouillon had been a speaker at an Identity Movement event in 2012 at which participants wore pig masks to show contempt for Islam.

Antic also asked Gouillon about his connections with Serbia’s own far-right 1389 movement, as he has attended some of its events, but Gouillon denied any real connection.

Soon after the interview, Gouillon, who is head of an NGO called “Solidarity for Kosovo”, complained on social media that he had been “attacked” and said that N1 television had tried to “demonize” him.

“It is obvious that they prepared themselves carefully for these attacks, and that they intended to demonize me in order to look like a bad guy,” he said.

He added that 12,000 donors from France had backed him, and that his help for the Serbs of Kosovo over the last 13 years had been worth millions of euros.

Gouillon is known in Serbia for his advocacy for the Serbian minority in Kosovo, and has had a Serbian passport since 2015.

The following year, Serbia’s then President, Tomislav Nikolic, awarded him a medal for outstanding merits in the field of humanitarian work.

Antic insisted she had treated him in same way as any other guest on N1 . “I’ve said nothing new. It is all already known,” she said.

Antic added police had summoned her on Thursday for talks about the threats she had received after Gouillon stated that the interview was the “attack” on him.

Serbian human rights NGOs and the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality have condemned the threats.

Gouillon, meanwhile, has called on the TV station “to stop the hunt that journalists of this media [outlet] are leading against me”. He said he would refuse any further contact with N1 until he received an apology.

EULEX confirmed that Ranko Perenić and Đuro Slavuj were kidnapped by the KLA, and closed the investigations

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BELGRADE, 8.12.2017. – For the first time, EULEX mission confirmed that journalists of Radio Pristina Ranko Perenić and Đuro Slavuj were detained by KLA members on August 21, 1998, and under the threat of weapons, were taken away in an unknown direction.  Since then, no one has seen or heard from them anymore.

Ranko’s wife Snezana Perenic is in shock.  A week ago, for the first time after 19 years, she officially received some kind of an information; a notification that the investigation was terminated. – I am in a complete shock. I could not believe what I was reading. I just thought: it’s impossible that this is the end? I won’t allow it! I want to complain.

Then I read that everything I heard was true, that it was known who abducted him, and that they admitted that they did not do anything. And finally, I see that the deadline for appeal is three days, I realize that I do not know how to write it, and I cannot even send it to the address of the Special Prosecutor’s Office in Kosovo, pulled myself together and asked Savo Štrbac from Veritas for help, whom I met by pure coincidence, “says for the UNS Snežana Perenić, who wakes up every day with the hope that her husband is alive.

Unlike the Perenić family, Đuro Slavuj’s family didn’t receive any information about the termination of the investigation.

A letter after four years

The decision to reject a criminal report came from Pristina four years since it was been signed by former prosecutor Maurizio Salustro (signed on October 23, 2013), and after the UNS intensified the investigation about murdered and missing journalists in Kosovo in the last year, and conducted numerous interviews with representatives of international missions.

Salustro, in his 2013 decision, explains that “although it is probable that the status of victims as missing persons after many years indicates that they are no longer alive, there is an absolute lack of evidence regarding what happened. Moreover, the identity of the alleged kidnappers is unknown, and there are no reasonable prospects that their identities will be revealed through additional investigative measures. There are no investigative conclusions suggesting further investigative actions … Therefore, the police report must be rejected. ”

At the very beginning of this document, Salustro presents the fact that “based on available information, on August 21, 1998, the victims went to Velika Hoča in order to perform a work-related task. On their way back, they were intercepted by an armed group of people wearing the KLA markings who threatened them with weapons, and took them in an unknown direction.”

– Logically, it is impossible to know in advance that there will not be any evidence that will lead to abductors, particularly because they were taken away by members of the KLA, and not by some unknown group. I say this, because for each area, even for the Orahovac area, it was known who was responsible for which zone. If they cannot find the abductors, they can easily and quickly find out who was commanding that zone – says Snežana Perenić. In this circumstances, it is doubtful whether the investigation was carried at all. According to all the rules of practice, the prosecution was supposed to talk with family members, however, Snežana Perenić, who lived with her two young boys in Kosovo Polje, never received such a call.

On the other hand, she did everything she could to find out the truth. She went to Orahovac several times, talked with the locals, and the information that she obtained could have taken the prosecution in some direction. – The man who was on the post that day told me they saw from the hill that the KLA was taking Ranko and Đuro, but they were too far to recognize the faces of abductors. I heard that they were in the Mala Hoča camp, but there were so many members of the KLA under arms, that the Serbian police did not dare to enter. Searching for my spouse, I also came to the politician Adem Demaci, at that time very influential among the KLA, who told me: “If by God’s will they were abducted by the regular KLA forces, they would be released, but if they were captured by rogue units, there is no hope,” says Ranko Perenić’s wife.

Snežana Perenić contacted all international organizations, including the then head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Kosovo, Shaun Byrnes, whom she invited to her home.

– Then I also called our neighbors Albanians who told him that my husband did not hide anything from anyone, that he was doing his job, and that they would go with him to talk to the main commanding KLA in the Orahovac area. Couple of days later, the bombing started. Burns was asking about us, and when we exiled, he called my brother in Indjija. In the last call he asked him: It’s been a long time. Are you still hoping?

They did not get lost

Journalists of Radio Pristina Đuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenić were kidnapped on the road Velika Hoča – Zočište when they headed towards the Sveti Vrači Monastery to make a report about the return of the abducted monks. The car in which they were, Blue Zastava 128, was never found.

The decision to terminate the investigation was handed over to Snežana Perenić  on November 28, 2017, through the Prosecutor’s Office for War Crimes of the Republic of Serbia. She returned the complaint in the same way. – In May 1998, the first kidnappings started. We talked about it, but he was not afraid, because he was not guilty of anything to anyone. Ranko knew the terrain knew as the back of his palm.  That’s why it’s not true they got lost. They searched for a shortcut. Orahovac residents told me that Ranko and Djuro stopped at the store that day, inquired how to get to Zočište, because the police told them earlier that the fighting was in progress, so the main road was blocked. An elderly guy came to the store and told them to turn to the property of the former Orvin factory, into the vineyards in the middle of which there is a macadam road leading to the houses used by the workers of that company – says Snežena Perenić.

Life in harsh conditions

Snežana Perenić lives in harsh conditions with her family in Batajnica. The struggle for the truth was paid by her health. She recalls that, even after the kidnapping, she was visited by the then Minister of Information, and today the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic. – He came to ask how are we, and offered help. We said that we do not need anything, just to find Ranko. But they did not find him – says Snežana Perenić.

Training: Financial management of EU projects for the members of SEWP Platform

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KONJIC, 08.12.2017.- The two-day training of the Regional Platform for Advocating Media Freedom and Journalists Safety, with focus on financial management and preparation of EU budgets with the goal of capacity building and strategic positioning of journalistic associations ended today in Konjic.

The representatives of this Platform attended the lecture of Goran Žeravcic, director of Kronauer Consulting d.o.o Sarajevo, and an expert in the area of capacity building and civil society development.

This Training is a part of the project Regional Platform for Advocating Media Freedom and Journalists safety, implemented by journalists associations from the region: Independent Journalists Association Serbia, BH Journalists Association, Trade Union of Media of Montenegro, Association of Journalists of Macedonia, Association of Journalists of Kosovo i Croatian Journalists’ Association.

 

AJK condemns improper behaviour of police officer against journalists

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PRISTINA, 08.12.2017 – The Association of Journalists of Kosovo is deeply concerned with the information received from its members who were covering a trial in Pristina Basic Court on Thursday who said to have been a subject of bad treatment by a police officer.

During the trial that involves several MPs from Self-determination movement, journalists have had a rather rough and inadequate treatment by the Sergeant of Kosovo Police, Dafina Gashi – responsible for the security of the Pristina Basic Court.

Officer Gashi without any sustainable reason, after the end of trial session, ordered other police officers to accompany one of the journalists, Mentor Gjergjaj. He was taken in one of the halls in justice palace and faced verbal pressure from police officer Gashi. “You don’t need to tell me should I yell or not. Who are you?”, Gashi told Gjergjaj when the latter asked her to low the tone of the communication.

Officer Gashi ordered other officials to take personal information’s from the journalist without any further explanation for such an action.

The Association of Kosovo Journalists condemns any verbal pressure and inadequate treatment that has been done to journalists during their work, as they were reporting from a court session that was open to the media and the public.

We consider that such behaviour and pressure constitutes a direct violation of the work of journalists. Therefore AJK calls on all law enforcement agencies to have consideration for the work of journalists and treat them with respect and dignity.

Tužilac Stamenković: Postupanje po prigovoru oštećenih

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BEOGRAD, 7.12.2017. – Više tužilaštvo će odlučivati o prigovoru na odluku Prvog osnovnog tužilaštva kojom su odbačene krivične prijave zbog napada na novinare tokom inauguracije predsednika Aleksandra Vučića, izjavio je za sajt UNS-a zamenik republičkog tužioca Branko Stamenković, član Radne grupe za bezbednost novinara.

Nenamernom pogrešnom interpretacijom sastanka, sajt UNS je juče preneo da je Više tužilaštvo u Beogradu uložilo žalbu na tu odluku. Istina je da su prigovor podneli oštećeni novinari, a da Više tužilaštvo postupa po njihovom prigovoru.

Branko Stamenković je objasnio:

 –Shodno Zakoniku o krivičnom postupku ne postoji mogućnost da tužilaštvo uloži prigovor na odluku tužilaštva. Ja sam prisutne na jučerašnjem sastanku obavestio da su oštećeni podneli prigovor protiv Rešenja o odbačaju krivičnih prijava podnetih od strane oštećenih u vezi dogadjaja od 31. maja 2017, koje je donelo Prvo osnovno javno tužilaštvo u Beogradu, shodno čl. 51 Zakonika o krivičnom postupku, o kom prigovoru rešava neposredno više javno tužilaštvo, u ovom slučaju Više javno tužilaštvo u Beogradu, koje je prigovor primilo juče, 5. decembra. Dakle, oštećeni su podneli prigovor protiv odluke Prvog osnovnog javnog tužilaštva Višem javnom tužilaštvu u Beogradu. Više javno tužilaštvo će tek odlučivati o prigovoru – rekao je Stamenković.

Dušan Telesković, član Radne grupe u ime UNS-a, izvinjava se zbog pogrešne interpretacije sa sastanka ovog tela.

–Žao mi je što sam pogrešno razumeo pravnu proceduru i izvinjavam se zbog toga oštećenim novinarima, javnosti i svim učesnicima sastanka. Smatram da je u ovom slučaju bitno da i dalje postoji mogućnost da se procesuiraju oni koji su napali novinare tokom inauguracije predsednika Aleksandra Vučića. Nadam se da ova greška neće uticati na dalji rad zajedničke Radne grupe čiji je primarni cilj povećanje bezbednosti novinara – rekao je Telesković.