ANEM WEEKLY MEDIA UPDATE 

SEPTEMBER 1 - SEPTEMBER 7, 2001

• SEEMO: THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...

BELGRADE, September 3, 2001 The South-Eastern Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) expressed deep concern about the development of the media situation in Yugoslavia in their open letter to Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica. 

The new Yugoslav and Serbian governments were treating the media in the same way as their predecessors from the Milosevic regime did, SEEMO claimed.

For instance, they wrote, Belgrade daily Danas has been verbally assaulted several times on the grounds of its critical standpoint:

“You personally assaulted this newspaper in the public meeting in Kraljevo, asserting that they were always depicting you as the archenemy, and that they had treated you in a worse manner than they had treated Milosevic during his time,” they wrote to Kostunica.

This kind of behaviour is a vestige of the former regime, and cannot fit within the frames of a democratic society, SEEMO warned.

“Verbal assaults like this one are especially dangerous in young democracies, like Yugoslavia, in which the verbal assaults escalated into physical assaults in the recent past,” they wrote.

SEEMO secretary-general Oliver Vujovic reminded Kostunica that the government had not yet discovered the identities of the murderers of Milan Pantic, Slavko Curuvija, and Dada Vujasinovic.

“We were also informed about the recent murder attempt on a general director of a Belgrade-based weekly who wanted to remain anonymous,” they wrote.

SEEMO called on Kostunica to do everything in his power to put an end to such behaviour towards the journalists who, they said, play an important role in all the democratic societies.

• DAN EDITOR GUILTY OF LIBEL OVER MAFIA CLAIMS

PODGORICA, September 4, 2001 - The editor-in-chief of Podgorica daily Dan today received a five-month suspended jail sentence after being found guilty of libel. 

Vlado Asanin was sued by businessman Stanko "Cane" Subotic after Dan reprinted articles from Zagreb weekly Nacional calling him the "chief mafia boss in the Balkans, responsible for several murders".

Podgorica court president Milic Medjedovic said that Asanin had reprinted the controversial article without checking the facts. 

The sentence is suspended for two years. 

After hearing the sentence passed upon him, Asanin said that the verdict marked the "end of free journalism in Montenegro".

Montenegrin information minister, Bozidar Jaredic responded to the ruling by saying Asanin has misrepresented the scope of the case.

“Well, I do not think that the rights of the media were put in jeopardy by this legal proceeding. This legal proceeding was instituted in order to try one person with the regard of his right or wrong behaviour according to what the law permits or bans. Therefore, I do not see that by performing it somebody jeopardises the media, because we have never put any media organisation on trial. The media are absolutely free here,” Jaredic told press. 

• INVESTIGATE SESELJ, SLAVKO CURUVIJA’S BROTHER DEMANDS

BELGRADE, September 4, 2001 Jovo Curuvija, brother of the murdered journalist Slavko Curuvija, called on the Serbian government Monday to investigate the possibility of Vojislav Seselj’s involvement with the murder of his brother on April 11, 1999.

Seselj is the leader of the Serbian Radical party and a former deputy prime minister in Serbian government. 

Responding to Seselj’s claim that the murder was committed by Branko "Jorga" Jeftovic and Zoran "Canda" Davidovic, Jovo Curuvija said that it was logical that Seselj knew who had committed the murder, because at the time he had been in the leading position in the former government, which he accused of having been the instigator and the organizer of the crime.

“After Slavko had been murdered, in his then authority as deputy prime minister, Seselj threatened the journalists with murders, so it is only logical that he knows who the perpetrators were, because in the police-run mafia state that Serbia was while he was in power, the murder of Slavko Curuvija was committed with a political background, aided by the state apparatus, which was the instigator and the organizer of the crime,” Jovo Curuvija said.

He stated that it was a scandal that Seselj was making “a travesty and a charade” out of this case, and invited the Prosecutor in charge to “stop hiding, and to start doing his job”.

• WORKERS PROTEST CONDITIONS AT RADIO TELEVISION OF SERBIA

BELGRADE, September 5, 2001 Representatives of the Executive Council of the Workers’ Union Nezavisnost from Radio Televisions Beograd, Novi Sad, and Pristina demanded that the Serbian government improve the poor financial situation and work conditions throughout the state-run media organisation. 

“The average salary of the employees in Radio Television of Serbia cannot provide for one half of the average family monthly everyday expenses. There are some employees on the pay roll who appear only to collect their salary, and those who simultaneously work for some rival institutions and with some privately-run companies,” the Workers’ Union Nezavisnost wrote.

• KOSTUNICA ACCUSES RADIO B92 OF FABRICATION

BELGRADE, Wednesday - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has accused Radio B92 of broadcasting "unauthentic" transcripts of his talks with Zoran Djindjic during the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic. 

The story was broadcast hour after hour, Kostunica told TV Politika last night, before being pulled from both the radio and the website, he said. 

Radio B92 has insisted the dialogue was broadcast only after a reliable source within the Serbian government confirmed its authenticity. And then, the story was aired only at 5pm, not in the hourly headlines and can still be found in the website archives. 

The story was taken from a report in Belgrade daily Nedeljni Telegraf, which claimed that in a telephone conversation with the Serbian premier Kostunica had given his consent for the extradition of Milosevic. (B92)

• DAN EDITOR RESIGNS OVER LIBEL VERDICT

PODGORICA, Wednesday - The editor-in-chief of Podgorica daily Dan has resigned after receiving a five-month suspended jail sentence for libel. 

Vlado Asanin described Monday's court verdict as "the end of free journalism in Montenegro." He had been sued by businessman Stanko "Cane" Subotic after Dan reprinted articles from Zagreb weekly Nacional, labelling him the Balkans' "chief mafia boss, responsible for several murders." 

Asanin told press he decided to resign to protest the court's decision but also to protect his publication from the court sentence, suspended for two years.

Dusko Jovanovic has been appointed acting-director until a permanent replacement is found. (FoNet)

• TELEVISION SABAC ON STRIKE

SABAC, September 6, 2001 Part-time associates of Television Sabac employed in the production department went on strike yesterday demanding that their salaries from July has not yet been paid to them. 

Due to their strike, the daily News Programme of Television Sabac was not broadcast. Television Sabac is an affiliate of the Public News Company Glas Podrinja. The satellite programme MTV is currently being broadcast on the frequency of this television station.

The employees of Television Sabac said that their salaries range from 2,000 to 3,000 dinars a month, for the full-time work. 

There is not a single employee that holds a permanent job with this television station, strike organisers told press, adding they share their premises with the correspondents’ office of Radio Television of Serbia.

source: ANEM
published by: Roland Brunner rbr@medienhilfe.ch date of release on this site: 05-10-2001

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