ANEM WEEKLY MEDIA UPDATE 

JULY 21 JULY 27, 2001

• OTPOR MEMBER ATTACKED IN BELA PALANKA

BELA PALANKA, July 21, 2001 Radio Otpor in Bela Palanka, already the subject of an ongoing legal proceeding against the station, announced it would bring charges against local men for attacking one of its journalists.

Dragan Jocic, a journalist of Slobodni Radio Otpor (Radio Free Otpor) in Bela Palanka, reported on Thursday evening from the exceptional electoral meeting of the football club Jedinstvo, which is the former member of the Serbian League. 

After experiencing trouble at the meeting, Jocic said he was threatened at 10 p.m. that night:

“I was standing on the balcony of Radio Otpor, waiting for the programme to end,” Jocic said. “Two men that had present at the meeting came along, and threatened that they would throw us out of the radio, that they would throw us from the balcony. After that, I asked of them what is that that they in fact wanted, and they said, “Come down and we will explain it to you.” I went down to hear their answer, and one of them attacked me, and that was how the incident happened,” Jocic added. 

As the official statement of Otpor movement said that he was attacked by the members and followers of the Socialist Party of Serbia, Jocic said that it was true that the assaulters had been the members of that party, but that he did not know whether they still were the members. 

“I have to say that the man who assaulted me is a close friend of the former mayor,” Jocic added. 

The president of the Municipal Committee of Socialist Party of Serbia in Bela Palanka, Miomir Krstic, said that socialists had nothing to do with this incident. (B92)

• TV NOVI SAD BROADCASTS CROATIAN PROGRAMME

NOVI SAD, July 21, 2001 Magyar Szo will begin broadcasting the first programme in the Croatian language Friday on TV Novi Sad.

“TV divani” (TV sofas) will broadcast as a half-hour programme on TV Novi Sad at 5.30 p.m., with a rebroadcast Sunday. 

The next issue of the programme, which will deal with the issues that are of interest to ethnic Croats living in Vojvodina, will broadcast August 24. 

The authors of the programme are the journalists and camera operators from Subotica. They have already prepared twenty half-hour programmes entitled “TV tjednik” (TV weekly) in Croatian, that were broadcast by the local television station Super TV. (B92)

• B92 TOPS LIST OF YUGOSLAV NEWS SITES

BELGRADE, July 21, 2001 The B92 web site reached first place on the list of news web sites in Yugoslavia today, according to the international web statistics organisation Alexa Internet (www.alexa.com).

The B92 website ranks higher than the websites of Yugoslav news dailies Glas javnosti, Blic and Politika.

B92's position on the entire World Wide Web list is 10,326, which is the highest ranking a Yugoslav news site has ever had.

According to the same list, B92 is the third most visited website in Yugoslavia. The highest and second highest on the complete list of Yugoslav websites are Krstarica and Pretrazivac.

• MAGYAR SZO TO BEGIN STRIKE JULY 24?

NOVI SAD, July 23, 2001 Magyar Szo, the only Hungarian language daily newspaper in Yugoslavia, will not publish during this week if the workers' union editing committee goes on strike beginning Tuesday, July 24, as promised.

As the editors announced Sunday, the strike will last for five days while editors protest for the paper's founder, the Vojvodina Parliament, to grant them a 100 percent salary raise.

The Vojvodina Parliament has not been willing to negotiate with workers' union representatives yet, the editors said.

So far, only the Workers’ Unions Organisation of Novi Sad has responded to their demand, by trying to exert their influence on the leadership of this media organisation and upon the Vojvodina Parliament to negotiate.

Unless an agreement acceptable to the editors is reached Monday at the latest, the next issue of Magyar Szo will not be published until the following week, editors warned. (ANEM)

• NUNS APPEAL: PROTECT JOURNALISTS

BELGRADE, July 24, 2001 The Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS) sent an appeal to the local authorities to do something more in order to protect journalists, in order that they could freely report on the events in their local surroundings. 

Commenting on Valjevo-based Blic correspondent Predrag Radojevic, who was interrogated by local police, NUNS workgroup for the protection of journalists concluded that the interrogation had not been connected to Radojevic's articles on local events.

Radojevic told workgroup members that his investigative articles had exposed him to both public and private pressures from authorities in Valjevo. (FoNet) 

• BK OWNER ACCUSES RTS OF OPPOSING ENTREPRENEURS

BELGRADE, July 24, 2001 One of the owners of the Braca Karic (BK) media house, Bogoljub Karic, issued a statement accusing Radio Television of Serbia of announcing” the lynching of industrious and wealthy Serbian business people”, and demanded that they publicly give their reasons for broadcasting that video clip. 

The video clip, depicting photographs of several Serbian businessmen, was broadcast in “the best tradition of the dark period of Radio Television of Serbia,” Karic claimed.

This anti-corruption campaign video clip presented viewers with "an invitation to lynch and an attempt to present people who had maintained the Serbian economy alive in accordance with the existing laws as criminals," Karic wrote in his statement.

Radio Television of Serbia disassociated itself from the video clip on "extra profit" Monday evening in the second edition of the news programme Dnevnik. 

The state-run television general directors responded with a statement saying that the production and broadcast of the video clip had been a serious mistake in their programme policy, and that the authors of the clip would have to bear full responsibility, adding that the production of the video clip had been the result of leaving many of the important decisions concerning the programming to the inexperienced editors.

Federal information minister Slobodan Orlic the RTS video clip on the new tax on "extra profits" acquired by some companies during the Milosevic regime, had been a serious professional mistake, and that the RTS editors ought to deal with it. 

Orlic said that it was only the proof that there were some people in Radio Television of Serbia who had not understood the essence of the democratic changes. 

“The information that was issued by the National Bank of Yugoslavia does not represent a final ruling and an invitation to lynch, as some misunderstood at RTS, according to their ways of functioning from the previous decade,” Orlic said in an official statement. (FoNet)

• SEEMO APPEALS TO KOSTUNICA TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS

VIENNA, July 25, 2001 The South-East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) expressed their concern Tuesday about the violation of the freedom of media in Yugoslavia, and appealed to Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to do everything in his power to ensure the safety for the journalists. 

In their letter sent to President Kostunica, SEEMO said that the police in Valjevo summoned the regional correspondent of daily Blic, Predrag Radojevic, on July 12, for an interrogation because of his journalistic work, since he had written a number of articles on the local political affairs. 

SEEMO noted that the police also summoned Blic correspondent Dusanka Novkovic for an interrogation on July 17 because of her journalistic work. She wrote in her articles about the financial problems of a local company. 

SEEMO expressed their concern for the safety of the reporters of the BETA news agency, and of Blic correspondent Milica Ivanovic in Leskovac, who received a death threat on July 19 after writing articles about the expulsion of an ethnic Albanian craftsman from his shop. 

“We would like to appeal to the President Kostunica to guarantee that such actions of the police will not be repeated, and that he will ensure that all the journalists who work in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have the right to carry out their profession, with no fear of harassment or intimidation,” SEEMO stated in their letter. 

They also noted in the letter that SEEMO had been informed in the same period of several cases of threats addressed to the correspondent of the Greek Ionian Television in Belgrade, Petar Milonov. 

SEEMO appealed to the Yugoslav and to the Serbian authorities to bring to justice the murderers of the journalist Milan Pantic, killed on June 11 in Jagodina. 

“The authorities in Belgrade must carry out the complete and appropriate investigation on the murder of Slavko Curuvija, the director and owner of the daily Dnevnii telegraf, and of the magazine Evropljanin, and on the murder of Dada Vujasinovic, correspondent for the Belgrade magazine Duga,” SEEMO stated in their letter, signed by the Secretary General of SEEMO, Oliver Vujovic. 

They concluded the letter by pointing out that journalists have an essential role in every democratic society, as well as that it should not be allowed that the murderers would not be punished. (SRNA)

• RADIO TELEVISION OF SERBIA GETS NEW EDITORS 

BELGRADE, July 25, 2001 The President of the Board of Directors of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS), Dejan Mijac, said Tuesday that the Board of Directors had considered the day previous the candidates for editorial positions proposed by RTS general director Aleksandar Crkvenjakov. 

“We received the report and the list of the proposed candidates by the general director, for the positions that he had, according to his own opinion, some kind of solutions. He proposed them, and we accepted that. For some positions for which he was not completely sure that he had a solution, or for which he had some difficulties to decide, he asked us to wait a couple of days, but that will be resolved within the time period prescribed by the law,” Mijac said. 

Responding to the question whether the problem arose about the position of editor-in-chief of the news programme of RTS, Mijac said there had been four candidates for that position, and added: 

“I personally, if having to decide, would consider that that position should be reserved for a professional, like every other position, and according to my own conscience, I would simply say: From the proposed candidates the best one is this one, and thus I would make my choice. That is an ideal situation, but unfortunately, it seems that such cannot be the case.” 

Mijac maintained that there were no pressures exerted by the political parties upon him, nor upon the other members of the Board of Directors. “The question whether any pressure was exerted upon the one who proposed the candidates should be posed to Crkvenjakov,” Mijac said. (FoNet)

• FOUR CANDIDATES FOR THE POSITION OF EDITOR OF THE NEWS PROGRAMMES 

BELGRADE, July 25, 2001 Gordana Susa, Milorad Petrovic, Zoran Petrovic Pirocanac, and Sanda Petrusic are the candidates for the position of the editor-in-chief of the news programmes of Radio Television of Serbia, FoNet news agency learned today unofficially, from the sources close to Radio Television of Serbia. 

The decision on who will be the editor-in-chief of the news programmes of Radio Television of Serbia should be reached by August 11, the same FoNet source claimed. 

The same source said that the general director of Radio Television of Serbia, Aleksandar Crkvenjakov, appointed Rade Veljanovski to be his assistant for Radio Beograd, which is the director of Radio Beograd. 

In the contest, for the editor of the Cultural and Artistic Programmes of Radio Television of Serbia, Nikola Mirkov was elected, Dusan Radulovic will be the editor-in-chief of the First Programme of Radio Beograd, Nebojsa Spaic will be the editor-in-chief of the programme Beograd 202, and the editor-in-chief of the Third Programme of Radio Beograd Obrad Savic was elected. 

• MAGYAR SZO WENT ON STRIKE

NOVI SAD, July 25, 2001 The readers of the only Hungarian language daily newspaper in Yugoslavia, Magyar Szo, were left Tuesday without their newspaper, because the Workers’ Union organisation of the editing committee organised a five-day warning strike to demand their founder, the Vojvodina Parliament, double employees' salaries. 

The strike committee announced they would prepare only the on-line edition of the newspaper until Sunday, when Magyar Szo was due to appear again, and that it would contain only the information on the strike of the editing committee. 

In the same manner, they announced that neither the leadership of the publishing organisation Forum, nor the representatives of the founder responded to the invitation by the organisation of workers’ unions of the city of Novi Sad to negotiate with the strikers’ committee of the editing committee, explaining that their demands could not be met because there was no money. 

They also said that the Vojvodina Secretary of Information, Rafail Ruskovski said that the editing committee had only two possibilities: either to put up with the current situation, or to reduce the number of the employees significantly, which would then make their salaries bigger. 

In the statement of the editing committee they commented on the remark of the Secretary of Information, who said that the demand of the editing committee was “cute”, and they retorted that they had also asked that their salaries were augmented during the regime of Milosevic, and that they had even gone on strike on several occasions, but that all had been in vain. 

The readers of the on-line edition of the newspaper also learnt that Ruskovski threatened that unless Magyar Szo was published again, some other people would prepare the newspaper in the future, explaining that ethnical Hungarians in Vojvodina couldn’t be without their daily newspaper. 

They also wrote the stand of the editing committee that their financial problems could be solved by disentangling the newspaper from the publishing organisation Forum, and that they did not succeed in doing that during the previous regime, while at the moment, when the Parliament was on the verge of adopting the decision, the Association of Hungarians from Vojvodina asked its postponement until September.”

The majority of the employees in Magyar Szo support going on strike, with only a few exceptions. Moreover, their correspondents were mostly for some more radical solutions, and for the complete cessation in publishing the paper, until Magyar Szo became financially independent, they wrote in the editing committee’s statement. 

However, Radio 021 reported on Monday that a number of employees, dissatisfied with the decision to go on strike, seceded from the Association of Workers’ Unions of Serbia, and joined the Association of City Workers’ Unions Nezavisnost. 

The Association of Vojvodina Hungarians for Preserving the Hungarian Language sent a letter to the editing committee, in which they invited the readers and the public to influence the authorities in order that the newspaper would get on their feet again.

• VOJVODINA PARLIAMENT DISSATISFIED WITH MAGYAR SZO STRIKE

NOVI SAD, July 25, 2001 The Vojvodina Parliament announced Tuesday that the only Hungarian language daily newspaper in Yugoslavia, Magyar Szo, which went on a weeklong warning strike, was not performing the minimum expected amount of work. 

In the official statement of the Vojvodina Parliament secretariat, the founder of Magyar Szo, an assessment was given that the readers were the ones who was injured the most by the absence of publishing the paper with the circulation of 5.000 issues in eight pages, which would be the minimum of the work process, and that the editing committee was working only towards their own financial damage, and that they were losing their good reputation. 

The Secretariat for Information stated that in order to solve the difficult financial position of the holding company Forum, whose affiliate is, among others, Magyar Szo, the decision on changes of statuses had been prepared for this organisation. 

“The procedure for adopting this decision has been initiated, and obtaining the independence for the editing committee of Magyar Szo will not be possible before that decision is reached,” the statement went. (Beta)

• DJUKANOVIC BRINGS CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST FOUR JOURNALISTS

PODGORICA, July 27, 2001 The Republic of Montenegro and its President Milo Djukanovic brought criminal charges against four journalists of the weekly Nacional in Croatia, who they accused of “injuring the reputation of Montenegro”. 

They brought a criminal charge before the Municipal Prosecutor’s Office in Zagreb, stating in it the criminal act of injury of the reputation of a foreign country, which involves the jail sentence ranging from two months to three years. 

They stated in the charge that the journalists and the owner of the weekly had made the state of Montenegro and its President an object of contempt in a series of investigative articles focusing on tobacco smuggling in the tiny republic. 

Nacional editor Ivo Pukanic told Podgorica daily Dan that the criminal charge of the Montenegrin President did not disturb him, and that he was looking forward to meeting Dukanovic in court.

• "RADONJIC ORDERED THAT CURUVIJA WAS TO BE FOLLOWED" 

BELGRADE, July 27, 2001 ­Serbian state security head Goran Petrovic said Thursday that the Serbian secret police had followed Slavko Curuvija, the journalist and owner of the daily Dnevni Telegraf, until he had been murdered, according to the order of the former Head of the Department Milan Radonjic. 

“The order was not typical for the work of this service, because Radonjic ordered that virtually every step of the journalist was to be reported to him only,” Petrovic said. 

Petrovic added more time had to pass before making a public announcement of the identity of Curuvija’s murderer.

Only the representatives of the printed media were present during the first press conference of a secret police head in the history of this service.

• ANTIC ACCUSED OF COPYRIGHT VIOLATION

BELGRADE, July 27, 2001 The First Municipal Court in Belgrade announced on Thursday that they were investigating a cases against Hadzi Dragan Antic, Goran Kozic, and Slavenko Bojovic. 

All three are accused of violating copyrights by broadcasting films on TV Politika as their serial programmes “Film iznenadjenja” (“Film as a Surprise”) and “Filmski maraton” (“Film Marathon”). (FoNet)

• "SAVIC IS A GOOD CHOICE" FOR RADIO BEOGRAD

BELGRADE, July 27, 2001 Dusan Radulovic, editor-in-chief of the First Programme of Radio Beograd, and Nebojsa Spaic, editor of Program 202, said Thursday that the new editor of the Third Programme of Radio Beograd, Obrad Savic would improve the evening news programme. 

They pointed out that Savic offered the editorial concept for the Third Programme, and together with his personal experience, both said that Savic would restore the reputation and the cultural mission that the programme used to have.

“The Radio Beograd editors look forward to working with him, and we consider the announced strike of the employees in the Third Programme to be meaningless,” Radulovic and Spaic said. (FoNet)

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