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Freimut Duve: Onslaught against Serbian media continues
VIENNA 12 April 2000
VIENNA, 12 April 2000 - On 12 April, Freimut Duve, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, responded to a letter sent to him by the Yugoslav Ambassador to Austria, Rados Smiljkovic, who accused Duve of being "one-sided, partial and unobjective" in his criticism of the harassment by the Belgrade regime of the Serbian independent media. In his response, Freimut Duve gave new examples of the pressure that was being applied on the media in Serbia:
- On 2 April, the editors of the Belgrade dailies Glas Javnosti and Blic expressed concern regarding the fate of their newspapers if the country's only newsprint manufacturer, Matroz, were to raise its prices. Recently, federal trade inspectors ordered both newspapers to lower their cover price by 25 percent.
- On 4 April, the Independent Association of Serbian Journalists submitted a request to the Belgrade Secretariat of Culture to erect a memorial plaque at the site where on of Serbia's most courageous independent editors, Slavko Curuvija, was gunned down on 11 April 1999. This murder has still not been solved by the authorities.
- On 5 April, journalists from Danas, Glas Javnosti, Beta, Fonet and Studio B were not allowed to attend the session of the Committee for Culture and Information of the Serbian Parliament. Their expulsion was ordered by Serbian Radical Party member Milena Budmir who accused these reporters of being "representatives of foreign secret services".
- On 10 April, more than 10,000 people protested in Nis the recent verdict against the local newspaper Narodne Novine, ordered to pay a substantial amount of money in a suit filed by the Yugoslav Army. The editor of this newspaper, referring to the government repression of the media, proclaimed: "They want to push Serbia into darkness."
- On 10 April, Studio B was fined 300,000 Dinars and its Director, Dragan Kojadinovic, 150,000 Dinars after charges were brought against this TV station by police general Branko Djuric for a report on the accident in which Vuk Draskovic was injured.
- Serbian Minister of Culture, Zeljko Simic, is pressing charges against Vreme over an interview published in the magazine with the former Director of the National Theatre in Belgrade.
Contact information:Kärntner Ring 5-7, Top 14, 2.DG, A - 1010 ViennaTelephone: +43-1-512 21 45 - 0Telefax: +43-1-512 21 45 - 9E-mail: pm-fom@osce.org