BUJANOVAC, July 24, 2020 – The journalist of the Bujanovac portal, Nikola Stevanovic, was verbally attacked and threatened by a person who was sitting in the company of police officers who did not react to the threats. An unknown person, who was later determined to be a traffic policeman sitting in the garden of a cafe in the company of two police officers on duty, made threats while Stevanovic was taking photos of the cafe’s garden due to the emergency situation, the police did not react to these threats, even when he said that he was a journalist and for which media house he worked. According to Stevanovic, a person in civilian clothes stated: “What are you doing, what are you photographing, run away so that I don’t come to show you now, to break you.” Don’t make me get up now”. During that time, the police officers with whom that person was were sitting and laughing.
Immediately after the incident, Stevanovic reported the case to the police station. Shortly afterwards, it was determined that the person who threatened was a traffic policeman. The next day, July 25, the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia and the Vranje Police Department issued a statement stating that the person who threatened the Bujanovacki journalist was a traffic policeman A.B. against whom criminal charges will be filed by the competent prosecutor’s office “due to suspicion that he committed a crime endangering security to the detriment of Nikola Stevanović “.
The statement also states that the Police Administration in Vranje, acting upon the report of the journalist of the “Bujanovacka” portal, Nikola Stevanović, took all measures and actions in order to clarify all the circumstances of the reported event.
