Probably you noticed a number of posts written with a darker-than-usual tone, sometimes just downright grim and negative. When i started writing for the blog i kind of hoped that i would leave all those things aside and concentrate on the cooler, positive things about Serbia that would make people think Serbia is all squeaky clean. I could still do that, you know, but i wont, because:
a) i don’t like doing things the easy way
b) if you want to know Serbia, you have to know every aspect of it.
b) blog is still a small and relatively weak media, but since i have the chance it would be pity not to use it as a mean of social activism, and because
c) i hate squeaky clean blogs.
That said, let’s remember that today is the day of press freedom, and that our attention should be brought to one of the riskier proffesions in the world today – the journalist.
According to the American NGO Freedom house Freedom of the Press 2007 Draft Country Report and Ratings, Serbia has half of it, which means that:
...the government, media owners, local officials, and businessmen continue to place undue pressure on journalists…
and
...although internet access is unrestricted, authorities selectively monitor e-mail and other online communications for the 14 percent of the population with online access…
If you want to read the full reports and charts for all countries you can find them here.
Cvijus recently brought to our attention a video made by B92 about murdered Serbian journalists whose cases still haven’t been solved. I wrote a couple of lines about the journalists from that video whose murder cases still haven’t been solved:
Dada Vujasinovic was murdered in 1994 in her apartment. Milosevic regime tried to cover-up the murder by proclaiming it suicide. Dada wrote about the connection between the organized crime, war and politics and because of that was always a target of blackmails, threats and lawsuits. You can read more about Dada at a website started by her family (in Serbian).
Milan Pantic also wrote about the organized crime in his hometown Jagodina, and its connection to politics. He was murdered in front of his apartment in 2001.
Slavko Curuvija wrote against the Milosevic regime in his weekly “Evropa”. First he was publicly accused of looking forward to bombing in another, mafia-owned daily. Couple of days later, during the 1999. bombing, he was killed in front of his apartment.
Journalists are still in difficult position in Serbia. Not to talk about it would be simply wrong, so this blog joins East Ethnia, Tamburix (in Serbian), Kusovac (who recently helped us not to forget one of the Milosevic’s journalists, today the president of Journalist association of Serbia) and other blogs who wrote about press freedom and it’s importance recently.
