EESC info: Tell us about the incident which led to your arrest and imprisonment

Boško Savković: On 4 June 2023, a huge demonstration was organised in Belgrade following two massacres which saw 18 people killed, half of them children. People believe that it was a political demonstration. On the contrary, it was a peaceful demonstration and one of the biggest. People were asking for the minister in charge of the police and the members of the Electronic Media Regulatory Authority to be replaced.

I was carrying a banner, which on one side said “PINK STINK” (PINK is the biggest progovernment media group in Serbia) and on the other “Vultures and hyenas walk together for a safe Serbia”, a hint to the motto “vultures and hyenas for safety” used by some government members in Parliament. Someone came and tied a puppet to the banner that looked like a hung Mr Vučić. The puppet was soon taken down but photos had already been shared on social media and were going viral.

Although I was not in the pictures, I was accused of this act and charged with attempting to subvert the constitutional order in Serbia, which carries some 30 years in jail. Four policemen came to arrest me. “Why four?”, I asked. “Two for you and two for the puppet”, they said. But they found neither the banner, which had been left in my friend’s car, nor the puppet.

Your detention mobilised a great number of people in Serbia and Brussels. As you are the co-chair of the EESC’s EU-Serbia Joint Consultative Committee , the EESC sent out a tweet demanding your immediate release which reached 27k views. How do you feel about that?

I was in jail, I didn’t have any idea what was happening. The only thing I know is that my wife called the EESC Vice-President, Mr Plosceanu, and the EESC responded immediately, and so did the media, civil society and NGOs in my country. People know me in Serbia and they all reacted, organising demonstrations outside the Palace of Justice. But at that time, I was unaware of all this. When I was given 30 days in prison, I started thinking about all the things that could happen to me and the years I would spend in jail. You can’t think clearly in these moments, even though I tried to use my background as a lawyer to think rationally.

I think people understood that I was not guilty, through the pressure from the EU institutions, from NGOs, from people, so they talked to the Serbian authorities and the result was a plea bargain to be signed with the prosecution in exchange for a conditional sentence of six months, with a general admission of guilt on my part.

I am no Che Guevara, I am just one of the citizens protesting in the street, asking for a safe country. Nothing else. I am a writer, a journalist and a film maker. But we are in a situation where members of the government speak against actors, media people, journalists and citizens, and people have taken to the streets because they don’t want to listen to this hate speech in Parliament anymore.

Do you think that this incident could have an impact on Serbian society?

It could, but we need free and independent media. There are only a few independent media outlets in Belgrade. Outside the capital, in smaller towns and cities, people don’t know what is going on. This is an information war and a war against fake news from the government, who present a totally distorted image of the demonstrations and people’s demands.

Do you think this event will leave a lasting mark on you?

I want to leave this incident behind me because jail is no place for decent people. I don’t want to fear because one moment of fear can take away ten moments of your life. But fear is an instinct we all share. I am not a revolutionary, I am just a man who wants to have the right to speak up. Do I ask for too much? These are just some of the basic values of the European Union: free justice, free speech and the right to think for oneself.

What kind of support do you expect from the Committee and the EU?

Even simply following the situation in Serbia and monitoring the developments every day is good enough. It is also important for the EU institutions to follow the media and the news coming from Serbia. Support at any level is really useful for us. For example, two journalists are in jail right now, so sending political and diplomatic messages to our government would help. My idea is Europe, a European way for Serbia.

Can you tell us a bit more about the situation of the media in Serbia?

We have some independent media, but they are not enough and don’t reach the whole country. I also think that we don’t have enough media to promote the EU, and that is why the idea of Europe is not popular in Serbia. Archimedes, the Greek philosopher, once said “Give me a place to stand and I will move the world”. I will say: “Give me media for two months and I will change the country”. There is no doubt that a Serbia with free media would bring about change. We now have some groups for the protection of journalists, but we don’t need to protect journalists as if they were endangered animals.

And what about the new generation of journalists?

They are doing their job with great passion and dedication. They just believe that impartial information and non-partisan news are good for a country and for society. I know that they turn down job offers from TV channels that pay well, where all they would have to do is toe the line. But there are some things that money cannot buy, like dignity. This young generation has dignity. They are trying to build a professional career in a way that when they wake up in the morning they can look at themselves in the mirror with no shame.

How do you see the future of Serbia?

Serbia’s future is in the EU. My daughter is 23. I am sure that one day she will be living in the European Union, but I don’t feel the same for myself. I don’t know how long it will take for Serbia to meet EU standards or if the EU will set new standards for Serbia. But I think that there is only one road for Serbia to take.

I was at a conference in Thessaloniki 20 years ago where participants said that they needed Serbia in the EU because Serbia is the only land that can connect the Western Balkans to the EU. And it is true, because you can travel by ship, by train, by airplane and now there is a connection via Bulgaria and Romania. So, the destiny of the Western Balkans is inextricably tied to the destiny of Serbia. Somehow, no other country in the region could be a part of the EU on its own.

The Coalition for Media Freedom strongly condemns the targeting and calling for attacks on journalists from N1, Nova S and the Nova newspaper by the member of the main board of the Serbian Progressive Party and the director of the transport company “Lasta” Vladan Sekulic. At the same time, we call for his responsibility, considering that he cannot perform the function of director of a public company with such rhetoric.

On Sekulic’s Instagram account, a video titled “Stop Foreign Propaganda” was published, in which journalists from these media companies are targeted with the message “we must oppose this evil” along with footage of grasshoppers and other insect pests. It points out that there is a “path to liberation” and shows a clip from the animated film in which a character holds a flamethrower.

Lately, the leaders of the ruling coalition have often targeted the journalists of these media, as well as that a group of people have been continuously protesting in front of their premises, and entered their private space.

The coalition believes that such announcements in the most direct way endanger the safety of journalists of these media and that additionally create very dangerous situations in which there could be direct attacks on journalists, especially because such words come from public officials who represent a model of behavior for citizens. In this difficult moment for our society, the Coalition believes that the representatives of the government should do everything to calm the tensions in society, and not to further inflame them.

We have already warned several times that such actions are very dangerous and that the consequences can be far-reaching. This kind of atmosphere and negative attitude towards journalists and the media is transmitted to citizens, who, most often, on social networks, also send threats, harass and insult journalists and further incite hatred.

We remind that hate speech is punishable in Serbia, which is defined in several legal acts – Article 11 of the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination, Article 75 of the Law on Public Information and Media, Article 51 of the Law on Electronic Media, and hate speech is also included in Articles 317 and 387 Criminal Code.

According to the NUNS (IJAS) database of attacks and pressures on journalists in 2023, by mid-June, out of a total of 69 recorded pressures, 39 were made by public officials, and especially dominated by those by the highest officials, primarily the Prime Minister and MPs.

The coalition especially points out the danger of such messages because we live in a society where we had the murders of journalists Slavko Curuvija, Milan Pantic and Dada Vujasinovic, which still did not receive a final judicial epilogue.

Belgrade,

11.07.2023.

The Coalition for Media Freedom consists of the Association of Media, the Association of Online Media (AOM), the Independent Association of Journalists of Vojvodina (NDNV), the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS), the Business Association of Local and Independent Media “Local Press” and the Slavko Curuvija Foundation.

Free Press Unlimited (FPU), in collaboration with the Legal Advisor of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), Flutura Kusari, has donated protective equipment to the Association of Journalists of Kosovo (AJK) for journalists while reporting for the field where their physical safety is at risk.

The first part of this donation, which includes 14 ballistic vests, 16 helmets, and 17 first aid kits, was received today by the Executive Director of AJK, Getoarbë Mulliqi Bojaj, and the Legal Advisor of ECPMF, Flutura Kusari.

The second part of this equipment is expected to arrive within the month.

The distribution of protective gear for media outlets will take into account the levels of risk in the country. Furthermore, in coordination with ECPMF and FPU, the Association of Journalists of Kosovo will distribute vests with the inscription “PRESS” to central and local media outlets reporting from the northern part of the country.

Zeljko Bodrozic, president of the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, NUNS, said on Tuesday that the verdict sentencing journalist Milovan Brkic to 14 months in jail was proof that the country’s judiciary has become an arm of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party.

Brkic, 66, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Tabloid, was convicted by Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday of calling for a violent change in the country’s constitutional order. The verdict can be appealed.

“If Milovan Brkic is really capable of destroying the state and harming it with his articles and speeches, then this state is not a tiger in the Balkans, nor does it have security services that it can be proud of,” said Bordozic.

“Brkic’s Tabloid has a very small reach and influence, but it is highlighted non-stop by the authorities in order to create the image that President Aleksandar Vucic is constantly under threat. That certainly cannot be a reason for someone to be sentenced to 14 months in prison,” he added.

The prosecution claimed that on May 8 this year during a ‘Serbia against Violence’ protest, Brkic called for the overthrow of the state authorities and their representatives – the National Assembly and President Vucic.

“The court today had a choice between showing that there is still some independence of the judiciary in Serbia or to send a message that Serbia has put an end to freedom of speech,” Brkic’s lawyer, Vladimir Gajic, told Beta news agency.

“Brkic was de facto convicted of a verbal offence. What he said on May 8 was just a politically incorrect statement,” he added.

The higher public prosecution had asked for Brkic to be sentenced to two years in prison.

The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Pluralism (CMPF) published their preliminary study, “News deserts in Europe: assessing risks for local and community media in the 27 EU Member States”. The study, carried out as part of the Local Media for Democracy (LM4D) project, illustrated that one of the main causes for the desertification of accessible independent media throughout Europe is the lack of adequate and sustainable funding for media organisations.

For the scope of this project, and in line with the methodology adopted by the Media Pluralism Monitor, the CMPF developed a comprehensive and Europe-specific definition of news deserts and initial assessment of the phenomenon, specifically for under-served communities. The preliminary study outlines the main challenges for local newsrooms and journalists, as well as for community media. It incorporates relevant data collected for the 2023 Media Pluralism Monitor, which provides valuable insights into the current media landscape across Europe.

The study outlines that it is difficult to assess the exact extent of the crisis of local and community media, especially on the side of demand (audience), and for certain media sectors; research about local news audiences is quite insufficient. Nonetheless, as local and community media navigate the opportunities and setbacks of the digital transformation, their existence continues to be challenged. Local and community media sustainability increasingly needs to rely on financial support from the state (MPM 2023), but subsidies are not granted to these categories of media everywhere in Europe, or not under the same criteria.

There is often a lack of funding and financing for local and community media, forcing them to turn to bigger groups, such as larger media conglomerates, government or political parties, to support their economic viability. Economic disruption of local and community media seems to reinforce dynamics of political and commercial capture, such as through direct media ownership and control by politicians or business interests. The consequences include lack of editorial independence, excessive concentration of media ownership and the unfair and non-transparent distribution of public subsidies and state advertising. These concerns, and more, are attributes of creating news deserts – or at-risk areas of news deserts – for many localities and communities around Europe.

The CMPF is currently also engaged in data collection with country teams across Europe to map the risks and emerging news deserts on the continent and will publish a more extensive report following this preliminary report by the start of 2024. The final report will present a comprehensive overview of the challenges faced by local and community media outlets, particularly in underserved regions, as well as outlining best practices developed by policymakers, editors and journalists to tackle such challenges. Read more about the methodology here.

This study was conducted as part of the Local Media for Democracy project, which also features a call for grants for local, regional and community media that is open for applications. The deadline for submissions is on 28 September 2023. More information is available on the Journalismfund Europe website, grant manager of the project.