Vienna, 03/10/2016
The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) expressed concern after a caricaturist for the Serbian daily Politika was dismissed for what are indicated to be political motives.
Caricaturist Dusan Petricic was dismissed from the daily after having his work published in the paper for more than 7 years. Petricic revealed that the recently appointed general director of Politika invited him for a talk and suggested, in sparse language, that the caricaturist should feature Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic as a topic less often. A month later, Petricic was summoned by the general director again only to be notified that since “nothing changed” in the theme of his caricatures, Politika was ending their contract with him.
“Caricatures are critical voices we need in media”, Oliver Vujovic stated today. ” We call on the managerial board of Politika to transparently reveal their arguments for this dismissal, and revoke the decision immediately” Vujovic added.
SEEMO is a network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in South, East and Central Europe and its press freedom work is supported by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) project, as part of a grant by the European Commission.