10/04/2014: SERBIA – MORE PROFESSIONAL IN REPORTING

Vienna, 10/04/2014

The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) calls media in Serbia to be more professional in reporting. Media should not publish unverified and sensationalistic information.

Some media in Serbia are participating in campaigns or as an instrument of political propaganda, instead of respecting basic rules of the journalist profession. It is not acceptable that journalists, who are well-known for their professionalism and journalistic ethics, have been labelled in some media as “foreign spies”, “enemies of the state”, “Enemies of Serbs” etc.

“It is a strange practice in Serbia, but also some other countries in the SEEMO region, that media are attacking their own colleagues, instead of improving the professionalism, showing solidarity with other journalists and support journalists working in other media”, Oliver Vujovic, SEEMO Secretary General said.

Vienna, 09/04/2014

The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) demands from the Croatian authorities to remove “humiliation” from the Criminal Code.

According to Article 148 of the Criminal Code, introduced 2013, the court may sentence a journalist if the information published is not considered as of public interest.

Slavica Lukic is the first journalist prosecuted under this article of the Criminal Code. Convinced of the public importance of the news, she reported that a company, despite the substantial public funding received, had economic problems. The company stated it felt “humiliated” and condemned the journalist. The judge sentenced her to a fine.

Oliver Vujovic, SEEMO Secretary General see in this case “a step to silence journalists”. According to Vujovic, this law can stop independent, critical and investigative journalism in Croatia. “The law might limit freedom of information in Croatia and should be abolished”, Vujovic added.

Vienna, 08/04/2014

Serbian journalist Radislava Dada Vujasinovic, freelancer and contributor to the Belgrade magazine Duga, was murdered 20 years ago, on 8 April 1994. Till today no one was arrested.

She was found dead in her apartment in Belgrade. The police ruled it in 1994 a suicide, but most evidence disputes this. From January 2009 this case is regarded as murder case.

When Dada Vujasinović’s family, after the end of the Milosevic-regime in 2000, insisted on carrying out a new investigation, the police first stated that it lost evidence. Then, an expert had determined that the police hadn’t done their job properly.

Dada Vujasinovic covered as reporter the early stages of conflicts and war n former Yugoslavia, as also criminal activity in Serbia. In the first years of the war in former Yugoslavia, she visited frequently front lines, but also the city of Sarajevo while it was under siege.

SEEMO urges the Serbian authorities to bring to justice the killers of Dada Vujasinovic.

Vienna, 08/04/2014

The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) informs that the former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa has lost a lawsuit against Finnish journalist Magnus Berglund and the broadcaster YLE. The Ljubljana District Court threw out his claim and ordered Jansa to pay the court costs. The ruling is not final. Jansa championed Slovenia’s drive to secede from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991 and was Slovenian prime minister from 2004 to 2008 and again for a year until March 2013. In June 2013 Jansa was sentenced to two Years in prison. Jansa was sentenced connected to the Patria case. Jansa had denied taking money in the planned purchase of 135 armored vehicles from Finnish defense group Patria while he was prime minister. The deal was canceled.

Vienna, 07/04/2014

Yesterday, on 6 April Greek police arrested Despina Kontaraki, a journalist with Eleftheros Typos, one of the country’s leading dailies in the country, and detained her for several hours after she was accused of criminal libel. The accusation was levelled against Kontaraki, publisher Aleksis Skanavis and journalist Giorgos Kouvaras after Eleftheros Typos published an article in which a politician was accused of supporting members of the far right party Golden Dawn. SEEMO is alarmed about this steps by the Greek police and urges the authorities in Athens to guarantees free work for journalists.

Vienna, 06/04/2014

SEEMO urges the authorities in Sofia to protect better journalists, after drunken football fans attacked and beat Yavor Roussev, journalist from bgsport.bg

Vienna, 02/04/2014

The South East Europe Media Organisations condemns the latest attack on a journalist in Bulgaria. According to information before SEEMO, the car of Genka Shikerova, journalist from Bulgaria’s TV channel bTV , was set on fire last night. The car completely burned down. This is the second attack on Shikerova’s car, it was previously set on fire in September 2013. Till today the police did not arrested any perpetrator.

Vienna, 28/03/2014

Bulgarian journalist Vladimir Zarkov working for 7 Dni Sport was attacked on 27 March in the evening by an unknown man. The man allegedly followed the journalist and attacked him spraying a substance in his face. All happened, when Zarkov was leaving from his work. Zarkov was taken to a hospital. Zarkov received threats connected to his work in the past.

Vienna, 27/03/2014

Journalists Hüseyin Deniz, Kenan Kırkaya, Mazlum Özdemir, Mehmet Emin Yıldırım, Nevin Erdemir and Semiha Alankuş, as also media-staff Haydar Tekin and Şehmus Fidan, were released from the prison in Tureky. They were all put in prison on 24 December 2011. The South East Europe Media Organisation has today welcomed the release of this group of journalists. However, there are still 44 journalists in prisons in Turkey.

Vienna, 21/03/2014

The International Press Institute (IPI) and its affiliate, the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), today expressed deep disappointment at efforts by Turkey to shut down access to Twitter ahead of local elections.

Reuters said that Twitter users in Turkey reported widespread outages today, with some browsers displaying a statement by Turkey’s telecommunications provider citing four court orders blocking the website.

Local elections are scheduled for March 30 amid an ongoing corruption scandal that has gripped the country since December and which allegedly involves high-level members of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in recent weeks has threatened to shut down social media websites, which have become a primary means for the release of wiretapped conversations that, if authentic, ensnare AKP members even further in the scandal.

IPI Press Freedom Manager Barbara Trionfi said: “Efforts to shut down Twitter in order to control the news are not only ultimately futile – they sadly move Turkey away from the embrace of human rights and the rule of law, and closer to autocracy. It’s been said that censorship is the lobby of dictatorship. What’s the point of democracy if you won’t give voters the possibility of making an informed decision?”

Erdogan said yesterday, before the ban was instituted: “We’ll eradicate Twitter. I don’t care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic.”

However, media reported that many Turkish Twitter users were able to get around the ban and that #TwitterisblockedinTurkey became one of the top trending hashtags around the world.