A half of journalists and media workers who participated in the research don't know whether the right to organize a trade union is respected in the media where they work. Slightly more than 60% of respondents stated that during their career they were in a situation where their labor rights were threatened, but even half of them didn't inform any institution about that.

Those who work without a contract, as well as part-time journalists and media workers, have the least access to legal protection in case of unfair dismissal or violation of labor rights. Slightly more than 60% of the respondents said that they do not have or do not know if they have access to legal support in those cases. Thus, every fourth respondent states that they do not have access to legal protection in case of unfair dismissal or violation of labor rights.

Respondents state that their labor rights are most threatened by the absence of compensation for overtime work, non-respect of working hours, dismissals and political pressures.

Slightly less than half of the respondents, 45.3% of them, believe that there is no difference and that labor rights are equally threatened for women and men in the media in Serbia. Also, approximately 40% of respondents believe that the labor rights of women are more threatened than the labor rights of men.

As the biggest obstacles to fight for the labor rights of journalists and media workers in Serbia, respondents cited the absence of political will, poor work of state institutions and poor work of management structures in the media.

Almost 3 out of 4 respondents believe that journalists and media workers in Serbia do not enjoy adequate protection from threats, violence or harassment. 39.2% of respondents stated that they generally do not enjoy adequate protection, while 34.2% of them said that they do not enjoy it at all.

Every other respondent believes that the working rights of journalists and media workers have worsened in the last few years. 32% said that the situation had not changed.

Only one percent of respondents believe that the rights of journalists and media workers have improved in the last few years

More than 85% of respondents believe that employees in the media need a strong journalists' union. Half declared that they would be members of such a union. However, close to 30% of respondents said that an influential media union is needed, but that they are not sure if they would become members.

Respondents expect the journalists' union to work on increasing the salaries of employees in the media, to improve the legal regulations related to the rights of journalists and media workers, to secure a collective agreement and to influence the ethical behavior of employers.

The majority of respondents are not satisfied with their income from working in the media. 3.8% are very satisfied.

Every second respondent has experienced burnout at work in the last two/three years and every other respondent points out that the work of a journalist has a negative effect on her/his mental health.

Dear all,

We, the parents and closest members of the families of those killed in the Experimental Elementary School "Vladislav Ribnikar" in Belgrade, are hereby addressing you, the editors in chief of television and other electronic and print media, with a request to change the way you inform the public about the tragedy that struck, not only us, but also the whole society. In short, please stop further devastating effects that your reporting had on us. The daily publication of "sensations" or "exclusive information" (which are usually full of untruths or half-truths), accompanied by photographs of a juvenile murderer, as well as pathetic announcements and performances by certain media workers, politicians and other participants in public life, only causes our re-traumatization, and in society you feed and nurture the cult of violence and evil. In order for such a tragedy to never happen again, it is the children and their guardian - the victims - who should be remembered by every citizen, not the murderer who took their lives.

Therefore, we appeal to you, not only as editors, but primarily as human beings, citizens and members of this wounded society, to do the following: First, try to put yourself in our position and ask yourself if this tragedy is a topic that you should think about exclusively through the number of viewers, "shares", "clicks" or circulation based on the one who committed the massacre. Second, stop publishing texts and articles about the killer and his family, as well as statements whose purpose is aming at relativization or glorification of his crime. Third, stop publishing any photos of the juvenile killer and do everything in your power to have the photos currently available on the websites of the media houses where you hold key positions be deleted. We also request that no photos of the perpetrator of the crime or his family be published in any text or feature about the victims.

We understand the need to write about two unimaginable crimes. Then, why don't you write through the prism of texts about our children, with their names and photos, with their talents, friendships, with the activities that fill their too short lives? Will the texts about their goodness, love, intelligence, joy, faith, wisdom, determination and courage not be read and are only reading ratings most important or is the protection of the public interest of the most importance? Is it so difficult to make portraits of those killed in Belgrade, Dubona and Malo Orašje, to report on the condition of the wounded, deeply traumatized?

We strongly believe that the citizens of Serbia are on the side of good and against evil, that they are interested in the stories from the lives of the murdered children, their good souls, the values and talents they developed; their guardian Dragan, who made every child feel special, loved and important. We feel the need and responsibility to convey to you how we, the parents whose children were killed, feel every day, passing by the newstands with your newspapers, following television programs and social networks. It is the infliction of indescribable pain every day, every hour, every moment. It is as if the murders of our children are happening again and again and will essentially never stop, if this type of reporting continues. Such excessive exploitation of this crime, with a focus on the killer, his family, so many half-truths and outright lies, make society completely empty of emotions and the possibility of growing true compassion, thus eliminating the prerequisites for any form of catharsis and creating space for healing.

Finally, let us live through our pain and sorrow in peace and fight an arduous battle before the judicial authorities for the truth about the death of our most loved ones; for the truth about the death that came to them through the audacious action of the killer, at their school, in the place where Dragan worked, and our children rejoiced, played and acquired knowledge and skills for a successful life that they will never have. Our lives, the lives of our families and all those who loved our loved ones, have been destroyed forever and we believe that the perpetrator of the crime and his family should not receive a single letter of support in the public media.

No one and nothing in this world can bring back our most loved ones. However, thanks to the responsible and very important positions you perform for society, you can have the impact on the fact whether the massacres in the Experimental Elementary School  "Vladislav Ribnikar" and in Malo Orašje and Dubona will ever happen again.

Respect our pain and hear our pleas, not only as editors or employees of a company, but, above all, as human beings.

We thank you in advance.

Respectfully Yours,

Families Andjelković, Asović, Aćimović, Božović, Vlahović, Dukić, Kobiljski, Martinović, Negić and Čikić

With this final verdict, circumstances have been created for Dejan Nikolić, whose first prison sentence expires on August 17, to continue serving his second sentence.

In spite of numerous obstructions, including the theft of the files of this case in the premises of the High Court, this case was reconstructed, decisions were made to disqualify the judge whose daughter, in the meantime, became the lawyer of the accused Dejan Nikolić, a new judge rapporteur was in charge, a session of the court panel was scheduled and held. Followed by a fair decision.

Endangerment of journalists requires efficient and quick investigative actions, as demonstrated in this case by the prosecutor's office in Vranje with the Police Department, efficient and fair trials, as we had in both of these cases, both before the Basic Court and the High Court.

ANEM strongly believes that the investigation into the missing case files in the High Court will also be effectively concluded, that the culprits will be identified and appropriately punished. We expect that the supervision of the Ministry of Justice over the work of the High Court will be carried out as soon as possible and all shortcomings will be identified, in order to determine responsibility and implement appropriate sanctions.

We expect the demolition of the illegally built building, the construction of which, in the first half of last year, caused endangering the safety of OK Radio employees, followed by vandalism inside the business premises. The mayor and the head of the city administration are directly responsible for inaction, which is why it is necessary to involve the representatives of the competent ministries, as well as the offices of the Prime Minister of Serbia and the President of the Republic of Serbia, in the actual demolition of the illegal building. It may seem like an exaggeration to some, but let them look at the content of every report on threats to the safety of journalists in the last year, the implications of which the leaders of Vranje will not and do not want to understand.

"Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, which includes representatives of all associations, the Republic Public Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Interior, established a new practice in this case: direct solidarity with journalists and the media who are at risk, through direct cooperation at the local level with contact points in the police and prosecutor's offices, as well as in the local media. Attending all trials, meetings with actors at the local level, organizing manifestations of support and solidarity, highly contributed to the creation of trust in the actions of competent institutions in cases of threats made by Nikolić. ANEM organized a solidarity campaign in which aid was collected for OK radio. This must become a role model of how we should all behave in all cases of endangering the safety of journalists and the media," said Veran Matić, Chairman of the ANEM Board of Directors and member of Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists.

Compared to the same period in 2022, there is no deviation in the total number of complaints raised - there were 42 then as well. The trend has not altered significantly, bearing in mind that 83 cases were opened last year, while in 2021 there were 87.

On the other hand, in the last three years, the number of cases has visibly increased compared to the period from 2016 to 2020. In those five years, there were mostly around 60 cases per year, except for 2017, when considerably fewer cases were opened - 38.

In the first half of the year, convictions were rendered in cases of endangering the safety of Željko Matorčević, editor-in-chief of the Žig info portal, Marko Dragoslavić, journalist of the Fonet agency, Nikola Stojković and Boris Miljević from RTS and Milan Šupica from the Pančevac newspaper.

Compared to the first three months of 2023, from April to June, fewer criminal charges were dismissed - 1 (3 were dismissed in the first three months of the year).

In the second quarter, in 2 cases an official note was issued that there are no grounds to initiate criminal proceedings (1 in the first three months of the year).

From April to June, the prosecutor's office submitted a request to collect the necessary information 17 times, significantly more than from January to March, when there were 7 such requests. This can be explained by twice as many complaints raised for assaults.

Evidence collecting procedures were conducted in three cases in the second quarter of the year, the same as in the first three months of this year. 

In one case, the person who issued the threats was not identified even after the preliminary investigation procedure.

The multi-annual trend of the majority of cases being endangerment of safety by online threats continues, as referred to in Article 138 of the Criminal Code.

The statistics of journalists’ associations differ to some extent  

Journalists' associations recorded a higher number of different types of assaults and pressures against journalists in the first six months, compared to the prosecutor's office.

The Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) published in its database of assaults that from January to June there were 67 cases of endangerment of journalists’ safety, one more than in the same period in 2022, but almost twice as many as in 2021.

Among other things, UNS noted that there were 20 acts of pressure on journalists, 11 physical assaults, 13 cases of work disruption, three intimidations, one assault against property and one violation of privacy.

The Independent Journalists Association of Serbia (NUNS) recorded in its database 100 assaults against journalists by 30 June this year. The structure of assaults is different from the UNS records: 6 physical assaults, no assaults against property, but 25 verbal threats and as many as 69 pressures.

The difference in the number of recorded "assaults against journalists" by associations and by the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office comes from the fact that not all assaults are reported to the prosecutor's office, but also from the fact that the associations also counts pressure on journalists as assault, which the prosecutor's office does not process because they are not criminal acts according to Serbia’s Criminal Code.

Drastic and repeated threats to journalists' safety 

At the regular quarterly meetings, held in March and June, the PWG discussed in detail some drastic cases of threats and assaults against journalists and media outlets.

The security assessment for Brankica Stanković, the editor-in-chief of Insajder TV, was also discussed, after insults and threats from the Partizan fans during a basketball game. This journalist had a police escort for many years after the hooligans chanted "you are poisonous like a snake; you will end up like Ćuruvija" in 2009.

They also discussed numerous threats to the co-author of the show "Good, Bad, Evil" Nenad Kulačin, which he received during May. The prosecution opened three cases at that time (one together with the other co-author of the show, Marko Vidojković). In all these cases, Mr. Kulačin was interviewed and requests were submitted to collect information, while in one case a proposal was submitted to the Higher Court in Belgrade to locate the place from which the communication was performed.

The case of KRIK editor-in-chief Stevan Dojčinović and the manager of that research portal, Jelena Vasić, for being followed was also one of the topics discussed by the PWG. In this case, the prosecution has acted promptly and submitted a request to collect information.

With regard to the repeated threats of violence addressed by Simo Spasić to the journalist Ivan Ivanović and his family, a criminal complaint was filed and the defendant was ordered to be detained, while the finding of a psychiatrist expert witness was provided.

In the case of threats addressed to the editorial office of Blic, the First Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade reached a plea bargain agreement with the suspect, who would be sentenced to house arrest. However, the court rejected that agreement. The prosecution continued to gather evidence.

The persons who threatened the editorial office of the daily newspaper Danas last year, as well as the journalist Dragojlo Blagojević (Drvotehnika), have not yet been identified. Namely, there was no progress in the investigation through international legal aid, so the perpetrators have not yet been identified.

In the last three months, three cases were opened due to threats to journalists of the daily Danas. Journalists Ivana Šundić Mihailović and Nina Čolić were interviewed and requests were submitted to collect the necessary information. Requests were also submitted in the case that was opened due to threats to journalist Nikola Krstić.

The PWG is also regularly informed about the events in Vranje, where an entire case file disappeared in the Higher Court after the verdict against Dejan Nikolić Kantar. This casino owner repeatedly threatened journalists, media outlets, and even members of the PWG in the courtroom, during the trial for endangering the safety of the OK Radio employees. Members of the PWG are intensively monitoring this case, as well as the process of determining the responsibility for the disappearance of the case file in the court.

At the last meeting of the PWG on 25 July, the forthcoming final verdict for the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija was also discussed, as well as the concerns of the domestic and international media public regarding certain media coverage about how that proceeding will be finalized.

The PWG emphasized that the outcome of this trial will have a huge impact on the media freedom, safety of media workers and all processes related to the ongoing media reforms. In view of this, the PWG expects a credible verdict based on the established facts, which will constitute an additional impetus to the advancement of the rule of law in Serbia.

The PWG with journalists and representatives of the prosecutor’s office and police in Novi Sad 

After visits to Vranje in June 2022 and Niš  in April 2023, the PWG members continued to visit cities in Serbia. Atthe end of May, the PWG held meetings in Novi Sad with journalists who were the target of assaults and threats, as well as the representatives of the local police and prosecutor's office.

The goal was to familiarize them with the work of the Group, but also with the system of quick reporting and processing of threats to the safety of journalists through local "contact points", which was established at the national level.

The members of the PWG pointed out that they wish to transpose the understanding that exists within the Group to the local communities as well. Once again, they urged the journalists to report each case and to actively participate in the subsequent procedure and take an interest in communication with the contact points. 

Lawyer Veljko Milić, a member of the PWG from NDNV, emphasized at the time that there are still drastic cases of endangering the safety of journalists in which the perpetrators have not been discovered, and among those with the largest number of drastic threats he singled out a journalist and professor from Novi Sad, Dinko Gruhonjić.

Mr. Gruhonjić said that he regularly reports all threats he receives. Most of the threats have not yet been resolved judicially, but he also cited a case in which the perpetrator pleaded guilty and settled with the prosecution. However, the case of the worst threats he experienced - when the entrance to the building where he lives with his family was covered with threatening messages - was not solved, as the perpetrators were not discovered.

The PWG member Veran Matić added that journalists like Gruhonjić are attacked in waves, in an organized and continuous manner.

At the meeting in Novi Sad, the prosecutor’s office representatives noted that their work is quite hindered when it comes to threats on the Internet, since the collection of evidence from social networks also depends on the companies behind Facebook, Twitter or Google, which have no obligation to provide the information that prosecutor’s offices are requesting.

Those who threaten journalists often delete their profiles and thus forestall the investigation, while there are countrieswhich interpret the threats as freedom of expression.

Even the work of internet providers in relation to the IT "multi-addresses" does not help the prosecution or the detection of those who threaten online. 

Nataša Jovanović, a member of the PWG for the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation, tackled the communication between journalists and prosecutors, noting that journalists are not informed when the prosecution strikes an agreement with the perpetrator under the principle of opportunity.

Gorica Nikolin, 021.rs portal journalist, spoke about the threats she received in 2019. She reported them, but both cases ended with the dismissal of the criminal charges, causing her discontent with certain actions of the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Novi Sad. That is why she did not lodge an objection after the second dismissal of the criminal charges.

Ms. Nikolin emphasized that it is important for the media outlets to report on cases of threats to journalists and to warn about the consequences for journalists and journalism, especially in local communities.

Cases of assaults against journalists Nedim Sejdinović and Vladimir Šper, as well as against the Green Patrol team - for which an unidentified person is charged - were pointed out. The prosecutor's office responded that cases in which the perpetrator is unidentified are open until the statute of limitations expires, in order to give the police time to find new evidence.

Journalist Boris Varga is one of many with a dilemma whether they were being threatened or insulted, and he spoke to the PWG representatives about it at the meeting. That is why he did not report those who sent him such messages via the networks, but he thinks that the perpetrators should be prosecuted so that silence does not inspire new cases of threats.

Call of the PWG to provide safety for journalists at public gatherings 

In the past period, the PWG has established a new practice of addressing the organizers and participants before public gatherings in order to emphasize the importance of unobstructed work of journalists, camera operators and photojournalists.

In its first address, the PWG appealed to the organizers and participants of public gatherings to enable unobstructed and safe work of journalists and media workers, but also to the journalists and camera operators to comply with professional standards and Serbian Journalists’ Code of Ethics during their reporting.

"Uniformed policemen and those who take care of the safety of the participants of the gatherings without visible markers, in civilian clothes, are responsible for enabling safe work of journalists and media workers, provide necessary information and cooperate so that the movement of journalists and their teams is unhindered. Journalists and media workers are obliged to follow the police instructions issued in case of extraordinary events," the announcement states.

The PWG emphasized that if a journalist or other media worker is attacked in connection with the performance of their work, the prosecutor’s office has the obligation to initiate an emergency procedure within 48 hours, in order to identify the perpetrators and bring them to court.

Photo: Miroslav Jankovic, OSCE Serbia

The dedicated work being done by some stakeholders to prosecute attacks on journalists is being undermined by the wider climate of hostility being generated by leading politicians in Serbia. Until this is addressed and the public discourse regarding critical journalism is normalised, tangible progress will remain elusive.

These conclusions come after multiple meetings with independent journalists and editors, media associations and unions, the Standing Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, which included a representative of the Ministry of Interior.

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Serbia exhibits a unique situation in which insults and attempts to discredit watchdog journalism stem overwhelmingly from leading politicians, including the President Aleksandar Vučić, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić  and ruling party MPs. Our assessment is that Serbia is one of the EU candidate states where journalists face the strongest verbal pressure and attacks from the state leadership. Critical and investigative journalism is still viewed by many public officials as an unpatriotic threat to be fought, rather than a healthy and necessary part of the country’s democratic fabric. 

This failure of the political class to accept and respect the role of critical journalism is dangerous. Smears launched by political figures are routinely picked up and reported by a network of tabloid media outlets owned by allies of the government who amplify the messaging, fomenting distrust and hatred against certain journalists. This behaviour by politicians normalises hostility towards independent media and, in many cases, acts as a signpost for physical as well as online threats by non-state actors.

It is no surprise that Serbia remains one of the most dangerous places in Europe, outside of Ukraine, to work as a journalist. In 2022, the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS) documented 137 violations: 34 verbal threats, nine physical attacks, four attacks on property and 84 different attempts to pressure the media. Until the end of March 2023, 33 serious incidents were recorded: eight verbal attacks, three physical attacks and 22 acts of pressure on media and journalists. Investigative journalists probing high level crime and corruption are particularly at risk and are demonised as foreign mercenaries and national traitors.

While multiple state-backed initiatives have been launched to address the safety of journalists, their effectiveness is undermined by political attacks on journalists which compromise authorities’ efforts. The Standing Working Group on the Safety of Journalists, established in 2016, is an important initiative and a platform for the exchange of information between law enforcement authorities and media, allowing more systematic monitoring. The prosecutor’s office has established a network of dedicated contact points across Serbia which must act quickly in cases of threats. The 24/7 toll-free SOS helpline for journalists whose safety is threatened represents an important instrument for quick responses, along with networking of competent institutions and offering assistance to endangered journalists. In a welcome development, the number of physical attacks recorded in 2022 dropped compared to the previous year.

However, while law enforcement authorities have increasingly identified alleged perpetrators and brought indictments, justice has proven much harder to secure. In 2022, 81 criminal reports were submitted to the public prosecutor’s offices, yet just five convictions were reached. Though certain investigations have faced legitimate barriers in securing evidence, in some cases journalists complain that serious threats are assessed by prosecutors as not meeting the threshold of criminal offences. As of March 2023, 41,96% of cases submitted to the prosecutor’s office were dismissed for this reason. Journalists also raised concerns that politically sensitive cases, including attacks involving members of the ruling party, were not addressed appropriately. While the Standing Working Group functions adequately on paper and stakeholders are committed to its success, its work is undermined by a lack of political will and the wider climate of hostility. The separate Working Group for Security and Protection of Journalists, established in December 2020 with the backing of the Prime Minister, has been a failure.

On the other hand, the Commission for the Investigation of Murders of Journalists is another important initiative and has been fundamental in the fight for justice for Slavko Ćuruvija. Despite progress in the investigation of the Police Working Group within the Commission in identifying possible killers, the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime continues to hesitate on taking over the investigation into the murder of journalist Milan Pantić, while the mysterious death of Dada Vujasnović remains unsolved.

Despite the many challenges, there are some positive developments this year. The March 2023 retrial verdict sentencing perpetrators including a former Belgrade (Grocka municipality) president to five years in prison for the arson attack on the home of journalist Milan Jovanovic is a welcome victory. With an appeal underway, however, justice for this attack has not yet been secured. Swift indictments and prosecutions in early 2023 for the threats made against journalists at OK Radio by a powerful businessman in Vranje were positive. The recent sentencing to one year of house arrest to a man who issued appalling death threats against TV Nova S journalist Jelena Obućina is also a welcome development. However, the willingness and ability to effectively prosecute such attacks appear to extend only to cases where there was political pressure or where the alleged perpetrators lack political connections, indicating a lack of independence of law enforcement bodies.

—————–

At the wider level, however, no progress has been made in strengthening the landscape for media freedom and freedom of expression. Media pluralism remains particularly weak, with independent broadcast media systematically disadvantaged in the market. The clearest example was the controversial decision in July 2022 by the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM) to again award all four national frequencies to pro-government television channels, overlooking applications by independent media houses. A fifth licence has yet to be allocated. The REM continues to display a lack of functional independence and has failed to carry out its duty of sanctioning violations of broadcast law by private channels close to the government. Delays continue in the long-overdue reform of the law on public information and media and the law on electronic media.

The public broadcaster continues to suffer from a lack of editorial independence and displays clear bias in its programming and reporting in favour of the government. State advertising – which has for years been the largest advertiser in media – also continues to be distributed in an arbitrary and non-transparent manner, largely in favour of pro-government media outlets. Rather than being disqualified from the co-financing program for regular violations of journalistic ethics, as identified by the Press Council, tabloid media continue to receive large amounts of public money. This use of state resources is one of the prime levers for the government to co-opt and control media coverage. While the direct ownership of private media by the state is banned, the purchase by state-owned and controlled Telekom Srbija of multiple media assets in recent years has established an indirect state ownership model. This is a prime example of media capture in Serbia. Taken together, these developments have cemented a pro-government narrative at the expense of independent journalism.

In addition to physical threats, independent media also face numerous legal challenges. Investigative platforms such as KRIK are being buried under an avalanche of vexatious lawsuits, both civil and criminal, meaning they are forced to dedicate valuable time and money to defending themselves in court. While the courts have recently thrown out clearly vexatious lawsuits, Serbia continues to be one of the worst countries in Europe for Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) and the number of documented cases is on the rise. Plaintiffs are most commonly public officials, politicians, businesspeople and companies. A recent case involving two SLAPP cases initiated against BIRN by the mayor of Belgrade is a prime example.

Overall, media freedom in Serbia remains in a poor condition. No one has yet been ultimately found guilty of the murder of a journalist. The climate of threats against journalists is at its worst point in many years. Media pluralism continues to be weak, with the ruling party overseeing a captured media ecosystem. The shared view of our international organisations is that, while important work on effectively prosecuting attacks on journalists has had a positive impact, this progress has been undermined by engrained challenges in ultimately securing justice and the wider climate of hostility towards critical journalism being fostered by political leaders. On balance, these combined factors mean Serbia continues to be held back in its commitments to improve media freedom as part of the EU accession process. We therefore recognise no overall progress since the fact-finding mission of the MFRR in April 2021.

—————–

This status quo must not continue. It is vital that the international community recognise the seriousness of the current situation for independent journalism in Serbia. In the coming months, our organisations will be giving as many platforms as possible to independent Serbian journalists to share their experiences first hand. International pressure will be central to enacting positive change. We therefore call on the European Union to ensure that media freedom in Serbia is a priority in the context of  the rule of law and democracy. We also urge EU leaders and officials to urgently raise the issue of pressure on journalists by high-ranking politicians during meetings with Serbian officials. Future progress reports on EU accession should fully reflect the seriousness of the situation and outline  for meaningful reforms. International bodies such as the OSCE and the Council of Europe must continue to address these issues head on. The upcoming report by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression following her mission to the country should be forceful in its assessment of the situation.

Twenty-four years after the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, the conditions for the safety of journalists in Serbia are alarmingly reminiscent of the period in which he was killed. The upcoming appeal court verdict for the murder will be the most consequential for media freedom and journalism in decades, and will act as a litmus test for the rule of law and democracy more widely. If guilty verdicts are secured, we hope this can act as a catalyst for concrete change moving forward. Our international press freedom and journalists’ organisations organisations will do all we can to support free and independent journalism during this time.

Signed:

ARTICLE 19 Europe

European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF)

European Federation of Journalists (EFJ)

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)

International Press Institute (IPI)

OBC Transeuropa (OBCT)

Reporters Without Borders (RSF)

The Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation

This statement was coordinated by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States, Candidate Countries, and Ukraine. The project is co-funded by the European Commission.

More than 30 years later, Sead Cehajic would tell UNS that his mother was his hero because until she moved to the hospital, she walked to work every day and risked her life. On that one-and-a-half-kilometer long road, she says, she often met the coroner picking human corpses from the streets and continued with him in the ambulance to work.

In the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Vukovar was only one of the smaller places, but for the high circulation “Vecernje Novosti” with its branched correspondence, it was apparently important enough to employ Jusuf full-time since 1975.

UNS wrote in the first text that Jusuf Cehajic was killed by a shell that fell in a yard in the center of Vukovar in the morning on that Saturday, October 12, 1991, and that the force of the detonation threw him into the basement of the house from which he had come out.

And that news will be dead for 38 days.

When newspapers were read

A journalist at that time, when the press was read, and there was no internet, could write in the news that the event took place the day before yesterday.

Jusuf’s reports were neither long nor inflammatory, they relied on official sources, they often talked about the events of several days ago and it could be noticed that they were written by a journalist at the scene.

As the conflict turned into a war from sporadic incidents, the texts signed by J. Cehajic, i.e. his initials, disappeared.

The report from April 4 describes how citizens protested in front of the railway station in Vinkovci because of the passing of transporters of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA).

Cehajic writes that they yelled ill-intentioned words at the soldiers, as well as the questions “why don’t you arrest Šešelj”, “where were you when Mrs. Nemcic was wounded”. The report reads there was great inter-ethnic tension in Vukovar and Vinkovci.

On the very next day, he signed a report with the Zagreb correspondent of “Novosti” JuricA Kerbler that Deputy Minister of the Croatian Interior Ministry Slavko Degoricija, the previously attacked president and secretary of the Serbian Democratic Party for Vukovar Goran Hadzic and Borivoje Savic arrived in Vukovar from Zagreb “beaten from head to toe” and that the fact that they came together “did not help regain trust in the “new Croatian authorities'” among the Serbs.

Barricades were erected in front of Serbian residential settlements. “Uncertainty and fear are spreading, so a barricade was also erected near the Croatian village of Lipovaca, in the neighborhood of Brsadin and Trpanj”...

All three killed

It turned out that one text. dated April 14, was signed together by Jusuf Cehajic and war reporter Milan Zegarac, who was a correspondent for “Vecernje Novosti” from Sombor until the conflict.

It reads that the Osijek police chief Josip Reihl-Kir reached an agreement with the Serbs from Borovo Selo on the removal of barricades in Eastern Slavonia with guarantees that they would be safe until the referendum on the future of Yugoslavia.

This policeman, remembered for his willingness to negotiate and his statements that he did not want history to remember him badly, nor as a man who caused the civil war, said at the press conference that the police could not control all extremists, but they could remove those in their ranks. Then he announced that he had signed ten decisions on the dismissal of police officers of the Croatian MUP in Osijek.

Both journalists who signed the article and the hero of the report, the Osijek police chief, were  soon to be dead.Reihl-Kir was the first to be killed. He was killed on July 1 by an activist of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ).

Zegarac was killed in Vukovar on October 9, and Cehajic was killed by a shell three days later.

The last signature

Cyrillic-written “Novosti” did not change Croatian expressions in Cehajic’s reports. However, it was clear that, on the one hand, the issue of personal security, and then all the cruelty of the war in the besieged city, in which the telephone connections were cut off, would reduce his numerous reports from April and May 1991 to four in June, then two in July, and then there was the end.

Several pieces of information in August, apparently sent by Cehajic, were signed with the editorial initials V.N.

The last report in “Vecernje Novosti”, which this journalist signed with his name and surname after a quarter of a century of work, came out on July 27, it had four sentences and was published under the title “Vukovar leadership replaced”.

UNS tried to find out whether there were those who remembered him in Croatian Radio Vukovar, where in the beginning of his journalistic career Cehajic hosted the show “Fellow countrymen” about agriculture and “Vukovarske Novine” for which he wrote, and that was part of the same company.

We got the answer that most of the people working there were born in the 1990s. However, by making inquires, they found one person who confirmed that Cehajic worked there and was later a correspondent for “Novosti”, but we did not find out which person it was.

Honest man

The leading journalists and editors of “Vecernje Novosti” at the time, now in advanced retirement, will say that Cehajic was a good journalist, but we did not find those who worked with him professionally and knew him well.

The editor-in-chief at the time Rade Brajovic says that Cehajic was a model of a journalist who respects data and that “Novosti” employed his son and helped the family.

“Brave and honest” is the description given by Brajovic of the murdered correspondent from Vukovar.

Srecko Petric, at one time the desk chief of this daily newspaper, knew how Cehajic died.
“He was one of our best correspondents”, Petric says.

And Manojlo Vukotic, who at the time was in “Borba”, as he says on the opposite side of “Vecernje Novosti”, for which he previously reported from Rome, and whose editor-in-chief and director of two on occasion he was after the year 2000, commended Cehajic’s honesty.

“He was an excellent professional. A very honest man”, Vukotic answered the question if he remembered Cehajic.

The assistant to the head of the correspondence section of Kadire Bajec, who passed away, Andrej Dornik recalled that he met with Cehajic.

Correspondents usually came on October 16 for the anniversary of “Novosti”, he told us.

“Cehajic was a serious man. He wrote very well. Those were journalists who meant a lot to us. “Novosti'” had the strongest network of correspondents, and it built circulation based on that”, Dornik said.

There were editions of “Vecernje Novosti” for every Yugoslav republic, plus, Dornik says, for Vojvodina, and additional pages for the larger cities.

We found that the circulation of “Vecernje Novosti”, recorded with the imressum of the newspaper published on May 3, 1991, for the previous day, was 346,012 copies.

In that issue, on the front page, at the top of the page, there was a framed news published that 17 policemen were killed in Borovo Selo, signed by J. Cehajic.

“The result is known, it was the beginning of the war in the territory of the former Yugoslavia”, Branislav Gulan, the war correspondent of “Borbe”, wrote later in his book “On Both Sides of Hell”.

Journalism and divisions  

In the search for Cehajic’s texts six months before his death, we came across famous names who were published in “Novosti” at the time, cartoonists Dusan Petricic and Predrag Koraksic Koraks, journalists: Misa Brkic, Vladan Dinic, Stojan Drcelic, Tanja Jakobi, Gordana Logar , Zlatko Cobovic, personal views on how to save Yugoslavia were presented by Nebojsa Popov, Zaharije Trnavcevic, Slavoljub Djukic, Branka Mihajlovic, Milovan Vitezovic, Nenad Kecmanovic, Ivo Druzijanic, Milica Lucic Cavic, Toma Fila, Ratko Bozovic...

UNS has already written that while searching the databases of foreign organizations, it came across various, mostly wrong data, so in the former Washington museum dedicated to journalism and freedom of speech it was written that Cehajic disappeared under unexplained circumstances. There is no Cehajic’s name in the database managed by UNESCO, nor in the database of the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, because their records do not include the year 1991. Reporters Without Borders recorded the murder of Cehajic.

On the other hand, although he was a member of the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND), actually its predecessor, the Association of Journalists of the Federal Republic of Croatia, he is not in the publicly visible records of journalists killed during the war.

Neither the name of Cehajic, nor the name of Simo Kljajic, a journalist from “Licke novine”, killed in Gospic in 1991, about whom UNS has written in detail in its research, is found on the HND memorial plaque at the entrance to the House of Journalists in Zagreb.

On that memorial plaque, installed in 1994, it is written: Croatian journalists and technicians killed in the Homeland War: Stjepan Penic (1991), Gordan Lederer (1991), Zarko Kaic (1991), Djuro Podboj (1991), Nikola Stojanac (1991), Zdenko Purgar (1991), Pavo Urban (1991), Zivko Krsticevic (1991), Ivan Marsic (1992), Tihomir Tunukovic (1992), Tomica Belavic (1993), Zeljko Ruzicic (1993), Branimir Polovina (1991), Sinisa Glavasevic ( 1991).

Cehajic’s family carefully kept the typewritten confirmation of admission to membership from November 1974. When he became a member of the Journalists’ Association of the Federal Republic of Croatia, it automatically meant that he received a booklet of the Journalists’ Association of Yugoslavia, the umbrella house for republican journalists’ associations.

The Croatian Journalists’ Association has kindly provided UNS with several texts from its archive that Jusuf submitted for admission to membership.

But there was no will for further discussion about the murdered journalists.

Last ride with Zastava 500

In his diary entries from the war front, Branislav Gulan, a journalist of “Borba”, in the book “On Both Sides of Hell”, recorded that on May 28, 1991, representatives of the Croatian Ministry of Police met with the Federal Secretariat of the Interior at a conference in Vinkovci for the first time after the terrible events in Borovo Selo.

Gulan writes that from the conference, he returned to Vukovar by Zastava 500, and he and his colleague Branka Bertok, who wrote part-time for “Borba” from Vukovar, were driven by the “Vecernje Novosti” correspondent Jusuf Cehajic.

Gulan describes in the book that in the center of Borovo Selo, according to the stories of the locals, there were Serbian and Yugoslav flags and that several Croatian policemen who were celebrating May 1 drinking at home in Vukovar made a bet and agreed to take down the flags.

The two, who tried to remove the flag from the pole, were caught by the locals, the others who came by car were let go. One day later, the Croatian special police from Osijek and Vukovar raided Borovo Selo.

It was Cehajic who reported on the event. Without unnecessary words, even emotions, in an informative style. Altogether 17 policemen were killed, 16 people were seriously and lightly wounded, most of them policemen, and all of them were taken to the Vukovar hospital for treatment. It is feared, Cehajic writes, that there are also dead civilians.

In that issue of “Novosti” dated May 3, in addition to the news on the front page, this journalist signed three more articles.

From the village of Brsadin, he reported on the arrival of the investigating judge and three versions of a murder. Mihajlo Gelencer, by nationality Croat, shot his neighbor Stevan Inic, by nationality Serb.

Osijek court judge Mladen Filipovic says that an argument broke out when Inic, carrying a Serbian flag, passed by Gelencer who was mowing the grass. He told his neighbor that he had no right to wave the Serbian flag in Croatia, while the other replied that he had.

According to another version, Inic carried the flag to place it on his house, but Gelencer did not allow him to do so.

There was a scythe next to a tree at the scene of the murder, and a flag of Serbia with a five-pointed star next to it.

Wife Nada

Once again in his book, Gulan mentions Cehajic, and that is in the entry of November 25, 1991.

“I learned that on October 12, another journalist was killed in Vukovar, my acquaintance Jusuf Cehajic, a correspondent from Vukovar for many years”.

A little strange, but as fate and the belated announcement of a death in the news industry can happen, on November 20, 1991, in the section “News of the Day”, it was published that Jusuf Cehajic died 38 days ago.

Along with the photo at the top of the page, in a few sentences, it is written that the sad news was confirmed by his wife Nada.

After the entry of JNA into Vukovar on November 18, she came to Belgrade to see her daughter.“Novosti” journalists, a team that included Milena Markovic, came to the hospital to pick her up and drover her to her sister”, Sead Cehajic said.

A month and a half before my mother’s arrival, he continues, we received the news that they had both died, so we were sincerely happy that our mother was alive.

*UNS and the author would like to thank the National Library of Serbia and colleague Dragan Milosevic.

And despite everything, Simo Kljajic is not registered in Croatia as a journalist murdered in the war. Nor anywhere else, except in the Dossier on murdered and missing journalists and media workers since 1991 in the records of the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS). Why? The answer may be guessed. But no one officially has given it.

UNS has already written extensively about how and why he was killed, and now we are dealing with the work of Simo Kljajic, who was a classic ‘local’, as journalists say in jargon.

Although he was a metal grinding machine worker by profession, he embarked on journalism at the age of 23 in 1956, when he became the correspondent from Lika of “Glas naroda”. As early as 1959, he became a regular member of the then Croatian Journalists’ Association (DNH), which automatically meant membership in the Journalists’ Association of Yugoslavia, according the copies of documents sent to us by the Croatian Journalists’ Association (HND) show. His membership was counted from the very beginning of his journalism in 1956, and he had to pay the arrears of membership fees.

In 1959, he was already at “Licke novine”, which he joined on March 15, 1958, and he collaborated part-time with “Borba”, “Glas rada”, “Revija”, “Vecernji vjesnik”, “Komunista”. He became the editor-in-chief on February 15, 1967, which was announced on the front page of this semi-monthly magazine. He was unanimously elected by the Board of Directors of the newspaper publishing and printing company “Licke novine” as the previous editor of the newspaper of the factory “Marko Oreskovic” in Licki Osik.

- Comrade Simo Kljajic spent six years as a journalist in “Licke novine”, and the last three years he worked in the information service in Licki Osik - it was written in the announcement.

In the end of 1975, DNH informs the editors of “Licke novine” that Simo Kljajic had more than 15 years of professional journalistic experience, and that was why he had the right of a self-governing agreement to be applied in his case that recognized his higher education because there was no higher education institution in SFRY that would verify the higher education journalism title. Accordingly, he was entitled to a higher salary coefficient.

As editor-in-chief, he “shut down” “Licke novine” in 1976 and started its successor – “Licki vjesnik”. As editor-in-chief, he approved by singing the last issue of “Licki vjesnik” on March 1, 1977, and he published the last text in it in the issue of June 1, 1989. Then he retired - on July 1, 1989, according to data from the DNH record card. However, he paid his membership fee until the end of 1989, and the one of the Solidarity Fund of the trade union until the end of 1990. Interestingly, it was found only in 1995 that he should be deleted from the records of the Solidarity Fund because, as it reads, he had not paid his membership fee since December 1990.

As a pensioner, Simo Kljajic was a correspondent for “Novi list” from Lika. And even in the war year is 1991. Interestingly, despite all the chaos at the time, although there was no official war yet, this year started with a Christmas greeting in “Novi list” to the Orthodox believers. As well as with the publication of photographs and news on the front page of January 7 that the old Orthodox custom of lighting Christmas trees in the open for the first time was revived in Rijeka.

The very next day, in the News section, on the most important front pages, there was Kljajic’s text “Heavily wounded at the barricades”, about the shooting of a man while he was driving to work. Barricades, as is well known, were the “trademark” of that region at the time. It also includes more and more frequent incidents, and Kljajic reported on January 11 that the inn of certain Bogdan Basta from Kosinje, whose nationality he did not indicate, had been demolished.

“Novi list” followed everything what was going on in Yugoslavia, and one of its main texts was also the famous March 9 under published the title “Belgrade looking like Bucharest”.

In the spring 1991, Yugoslavia had a regular population census, so Kljajic wrote on April 26 that it was boycotted in Serbian villages and hamlets because they did not get their census commissions and Serb registrars...

On Sunday, May 5, 1991, he wrote that last Friday a group of residents of Gospic, mostly Croats, prevented JNA soldiers from unloading a tank from a tow truck in the center of town, and that on Saturday thousands of citizens again peacefully protested “against the terror of Serbian extremists, the murder of MUP police officers, and for peace, freedom, and a democratic and whole Republic of Croatia...”

Reading Kljajic’s texts, we “scan” the situation on the ground, and four days later he reported that an explosive device was placed under the van of one Serb, while another Serb claimed that his summer house was robbed and demolished.

All the time, he also wrote ordinary, interesting and less important news on the “local”, back pages of “Novi List” …

The referendum that voted for the independence of Croatia was held on May 19, and the next day new reports from Kljajic arrived about the planting of explosive under the car of Serb Milan Novkovic and the burning of the summer house of Dusan Milojevic, also a Serb.

In the beginning of June, he wrote that “17 local communities” moved away from the municipality of Otocac, i.e. that the municipality complained to the Constitutional Court of Croatia. He reminded that on December 9, 1990, an SDS referendum was organized in 17 out of 40 local communities and the separation and annexation of the municipality of Titova Korenica was voted for.

In the middle of the month, he wrote about the “action of Martic’s men in Titova Korenica” under the title  “all-terrain vehicle of Industrogradnja seized”, and lthat the “Krajina militia”, i.e. armed “Martic’s men”, operated in that area...

On June 25, 1991, the Croatian Parliament voted for Croatia’s independence.

Kljajic was still sending news and smaller texts for “Novi list”. His texts were still published on the front pages. However, there was no more news about the destruction of Serb property. It is impossible to know now whether he sent it and it was not published or perhaps he did not send it at all.

In the issue of July 7, Kljajic’s short news was published that three workers kidnapped by the Martic’s men were released from prison in Knin, but not the three policemen from Gospic.

On July 21, he reported on the murder of a police officer from an ambush, and on July 29, on a terrorist attack in which one man was killed and which was “successfully repelled by the forces of MUP and special purpose units, in which no one was wounded”.

“Otocac pelted with mines” is the title of the text signed with Kljajic’s initials on July 30, while one day later a text arrived, signed with his full name – “131 mines fell on Otocac”. It read that the mines were being fired from the Serbian village of Podum, and that this was to make it known that somewhere there was the border of the so-called Krajina and the Republic of Croatia.

“Of course, it can easily be concluded that in the case of negotiations, the Republic of Croatia should be aware of the ‘border’ of Greater Serbia, which is so mercilessly attacked by terrorists, who do not choose where to fire their lethal weapons. The people are very scared, both Serbian and Croatian…”

On the same day, Kljajic’s news was also published that 17 people of Croatian nationality in fled to Gospic from some villages located in area of ​​the so-called Krajina, who had been exposed to severe harassment by the Martic’s men.

In the beginning of August, he reported on a mortar attack by terrorists on the Croatian village of Rajkovic, not far from Brinje. The report also read that there were great difficulties in the delivery of parcels and pensions in Gospic because 24 post offices did not work or worked intermittently, and terrorists stopped vehicles, robbed and seized them.

The last article he published in the column News, i.e. on the front pages of “Novi list”, was the one from August 27 under the title “Seized stores”. It read that certain shops of “Velepromet” in Otocac would be taken by the Serb Autonomous Region (SAO) Krajina and a new company would be made out of them.

As can be seen from the texts, he did not deviate in any way from the newspaper’s editorial policy.

However, the situation changed drastically on August 28, on the Orthodox feast day of Assumption of Mary, when JNA shelled Licki Osik. And shells fell on Gospic itself on August 30, which was the official start of the war in this small town.

It was also a turning point in Kljajic’s reporting for “Novi List”. On whose initiative - the journalist himself or the editorial staff, we cannot know either because all the actors are deceased. Not only Kljajic’s, but also the then editor of the column News Giancarlo Kravar, as well as the editor-in-chief Veljko Vicevic.

Since then, texts about all war-related, sensitive matters were signed by certain Pero Radic, whose name before that was mostly under the texts from the column Crime Desk, and most often those from Rijeka and its surroundings.

“Gospic is liberated” – “Novi list” reported on September 20, stating that the seven-day siege of the barracks “Stanko Opsenica” ended by surrender.

Simo Kljajic was still there, but with small, secondary matters - on the collection of financial aid for the families of murdered guardsmen, that Lika had done the harvest, that there was more drinking water. In the latter text, we learn that barely 30% of the residents remained in Gospic in the beginning of October.

One day before he went missing, Kljajic published the short news that the payment of benefits to the unemployed had begun.

And then on October 12, a little before noon, he left his apartment to go to a store about one hundred meters away to buy bread. He never came back.

However, one could not notice on the pages of “Novi list” that he went missing. Thus, on October 15, the news “Shipments delayed for days” was published, and one day later – “More than 200 workers dismissed”. There was also a short text “Tons of rotten meat”, where it was also written that maximum 45% of the population responded to the call to the citizens through the local radio to return to the town by October 6. It is clear when it is written.

“The beginning of October in the small town of Karlobag under the Velebit mountain range gives a real summer picture...”, it is written in Kljajic’s short text “More lively than in the summer”, published only on October 16, at the same time with the news that the pharmacy was heavily damaged in numerous mortar and similar attacks by Serbian terrorists and the occupying army and had to be moved to another place.

Interestingly, but in the same issue, there was a war reportage “Lika’s defiance beats the barracks”.

“Tuesday, October 15. Heavy rain in Karlobag, the sky opened. This is the border of the designated Serbian state...”, thus it begins, and it goes on to read that “Serbs are not history here, and neither are the present”.

Reporters also went to Gospic: “Fifty days of war in Gospic, the metropolis of Lika. Since the municipal assembly was attacked on August 30, six to seven thousand shells and grenades have been fired at the town”…

…  “In the operational headquarters for Lika, we met the three most responsible people, the Lika water carriers…” One of them was Tihomir Oreskovic, secretary of the operational headquarters.

Here we will remind you that Tihomir Oreskovic is one of the (only) three persons convicted for the massacre in Gospic, in which Simo Kljajic was also murdered, like other Serbian civilians.

It was also said in the same report that “military apartments and the apartments of many Serbs were abandoned”, and that those “whose apartments and houses had been destroyed were housed in abandoned ones” ...

A few pages further, there was the feuilleton “Sources of Great Serbian Aggression” in the same issue, in which Ilija Garasanin was also quoted.

A short article, published on October 17, writes how risky it is to go on some roads, while on the same page there is news that the printing press “Licke novine” in Gospic was burnt down in a shelling attack in mid-September!

On Friday, October 18, in the early morning hours, Simo Kljajic was in a group of kidnapped Serbs, who were transported from the barracks in Perusic to the locality of Lipova Glavica near Perusic. There, they were all killed with firearms by members of the Croatian army.

And while Oreskovic’s soldiers liquidated Kljajic and other Serbs, in Lika, Rijeka and beyond, his news was read and published that day Mesokombinat’s market was destroyed Gospic and waiting for reconstruction.

Perhaps a reportage of “Novi list”, with the title “Tigers in Gospic”, was made on the very same day and published on the next. Tihomir Oreskovic welcomed the reporters of this newspaper in Gospic. And ten kilometers away, their colleague Simo Kljajic received a bullet in the back of the head precisely on Oreskovic’s order.

Kljajic was long burned and buried not far from the Udbina military airport, where the corpses were transferred after the murder, when his article “How to sell cabbage” was published on October 21.

And finally, Kljajic’s last text they had “in store” was released on October 22 – “Potato digging with the rumble of mines”.

“Except for a few rain showers in the end of September and the beginning of October, the climatic conditions were favorable for farmers, who harvested potatoes...”. It is obvious when it was written.

From then until November 19, “Novi list” did not know what happened to their correspondent from Gospic. Only on that day and only on the 16^th page of the newspaper, in the Crime Section, the news was published that Simo Kljajic, a longtime associate of “Novi list” went missing.

And this was the end. Simo Kljajic did not exist for colleagues, journalists, media in Croatia. He had never existed.

And entire Gospic, Lika and beyond knew practically immediately what happened to Kljajic and more than 100 other Serbs, who were brutally murdered in October 1991. Nothing happened even when former members of the Croatian Army in the 1990s testified in the media about the crimes against those Serbs. Nothing happened even when in 2003 the verdict of the County Court in Rijeka was passed for the crime in Gospic, with the name of Simo Kljajic among the victims. Nothing happened even when it was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Croatia in 2004. Nothing happened to date.

At the entrance to the building of the Croatian Journalists’ Association in Zagreb, there is a marble plaque with the names of 14 Croatian journalists and technicians who died in the Homeland War. HND installed it in 1994. Of course, Simo Kljajic’s name is not there, nor many others. And that is somewhat understandable for 1994. However, we are now in the year 2023. And nothing has changed.

And while our colleagues from HND sent us all copies of the documents about Kljajic right away, we were left without an answer after we asked them several times why his name was not on the plaque or on any list of murdered journalists.

Sime Kljajic’s name is not on any other list of murdered and missing journalists in international organizations that dealt with this subject.

And a man who was guilty of nothing but killed like a dog at least deserved this little. And he has not been decently buried to date. However, he was a journalist until the very last moment, for 35 years.

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Together they form the global jury. The rest of the regional juries will be announced soon. Find out more about the judging process.

The website, if not calling directly for the execution of the people listed, is often qualified as a “Kill List”. People who are no longer alive have their pictures adorned with a red cross and the word “liquidated”.

Myrotvorets claims that the reason for listing people are “political” and it exists to list the people who “protect the Russian narrative”, and public figures who seem too close to having “pro-Russian” ideas. The source of the website and the people behind its creation and maintenance is unknown.

Date of incident: 2022-11-10

Number of attacked persons or entities related to media: 1

The Report says that the MFRR recorded 19 alerts for Serbia involving attacked persons or entities related to media.

“The majority of these alerts concern cases of harassment and psychological violence, with two trends standing out: online harassment and harassment in the workplace,” reads the Report.

However, as I drive to Belgrade, I think about Svetlana Ivanov from OK Radio, who, along with the owner Olivera Vladković, bravely testified about threats and violence against OK Radio and No Comment Caffe, who experienced new threats in court... And who now remains alone in Vranje, with all her fears and problems, concern for her family's life and fear for her existence. Women as a target again, and I believe that not only women will stand in solidarity, but all of us together, with Svetlana and Olivera, other employees at OK Radio and No Comment Cafe and all freelance journalists in Vranje.

If trials were to be recorded, then the judge could stop the trial in disputed situations until she reviewed the footage and determined what happened. If it had been possible at yesterday's trial in Vranje, the judge could have seen and heard the accused Dejan Nikolić Kantar shouting on the video that he will destroy Vranje if he remains in custody, and he repeated this several times in different aggressive versions. He also repeatedly exclaimed that "those who are afraid should be afraid", referring to the victims in this case, Olivera Vladković and Svetlana Ivanov, who, by the way, are under a certain degree of police protection precisely because of the assessment of the Minsitry of Interior. This threat is more than clear: "The fact that you stated in court that you are afraid, you are right, you have reason to be afraid, and I won’t be stopped..." It could also be determined in what context he uttered the following sentence: "In 1941, in Jasenovac, it was dealt with rather simply, "with a gun to the forehead", adding that he was not afraid of anyone...

If it was possible to watch the video, it would be possible to determine the threat uttered by Dejan Nikolić, during the testimony of the injured party Svetlana, when she answered the judge's question if she was afraid, while she was talking about the fear for herself, her old mother in a wheelchair and brother with disability. And when she said quietly, in a trembling voice through tears: "He is threatening me even now." I expected the competent prosecutor to demand more detailed attention, enter the record and demand the initiation of a new lawsuit for threats...

I don’t sleep well

When asked by the judge if she is afraid of anything, Svetlana Ivanov answers: "I am afraid that some infuriated people will harm me and my family." Especially when I read the comments on the portals, I also fear for my existence, my own and my family's". When asked if she walks peacefully on the street, Svetlana answers "no" and adds that she doesn't sleep peacefully, and neither does her family. It could be seen that the defendant tries to stage health problems, which is why he called the emergency, which in turn helped him to meet his family, and to try to stay in the hospital in Vranje...

The main hearing in the Basic Court in Vranje began with a rally of around 300 citizens, mostly Roma, uniformed in T-shirts with the appeal "Vučić, help us, we seek justice" and several banners "Justice for Kantar" written along with the image of the President of Serbia. According to the information I received, the rally did not acquire a permit due to late registration. Despite this, the police did not prevent the holding of this gathering, under the very window of the courtroom where the trial was taking place, which was also disrupted due to the frequent chanting of Kantar’s supporters.

Such a precedent represents the legitimization of pressure on the court, and it can become a dangerous practice. Not to mention the abuse of members of the Roma community, who, according to the information I received, were paid 10 to 20 euros, and arrived on two buses from Surdulica and some other localities.

Defendant Nikolić was brought from the Central Prison in Belgrade, but he was brought at the back entrance, so contact with the gathered citizens was avoided. While entering the hall where the trial was held, Nikolić said to one of his people: "If Veran Matić enters, let everyone who came enter the hall." Although he came dressed inappropriately, in short pants, to demonstrate that he had a prosthetic leg, which he lost due to the detonation of explosives planted under his car a few years ago, he was allowed to attend. Quarrelsome and impulsive in nature, he led judge Jelena Dimitrijević to repeat several times that she would not tolerate disruption of the main trial, and that those who interfere will be punished.

In the audience, there were about fifteen journalists and the same number of observers from the families of the accused and friends and associates. The trial was held for the events that took place on June 1, 2022.

Briefly, the indictment describes the incident: Around 5:00 p.m., on this day, the accused Bojan Tanasković enters the premises of No comment Cafe, which operates under the auspices of OK Radio, carrying a spray can on his back, sprays white paint on the furniture, floor, walls and other items in this facility, which was recorded by security cameras. After he leaves, the defendant Slaviša Kocić enters the cafe, carrying a mobile phone and inviting the present employees of the radio and the cafe to come closer in order to hear "what Dejan has to tell them". Then they hear on the speakerphone: "Dejan speaking, this is because of the lawsuit, this is just the beginning, the cafe won’t work, this is for Belgrade..."

The mentioned lawsuits are related to the illegally built building that used to wall off part of OK Radio, and which must be demolished according to the decision of the Construction Inspection of the city of Vranje, with the headquarters in Belgrade, because the owner reported the threats she received from Dejan Nikolić in the capital.

While the accused "painter" and "telephone carrier" were obviously fantasizing about explaining what they had done, the accused Dejan Nikolić continued with threats with every gesture, even though he denied the crime committed, directly repeating the criminal act and adding threats that he will destroy the city...

Bojan Tanasković, previously convicted for playing games of chance, as he says, explaining the reasons why he destroyed the property of the cafe with paint, said that he was in that cafe five or six years ago and saw that they had some bugs, and then he decided exterminate them. So, he went home to the basement, took a spray can thinking it contained total insect killer, went into the coffee shop and sprayed it… He didn't notice the white paint coming out of the sprayer. Later, he made diverse variants of the statement. He admitted the crime, but he also takes as an extenuating circumstance that he was not in his right mind: "It can happen to anyone, this guy killed 11 in Montenegro, it can happen to anyone..." He apologized to the owner of the cafe No Comment.

The defendant Slaviša Kocić said that he went to the grocery store that day. He dreamed of his late wife who was eating cherries and strawberries. On the way to the store, a boy whom he saw for the first time approached him, handed him the phone and told him to take the phone to the waiters. That he first entered the Demode cafe, but the waiters did not want to take the phone there, so he entered the No Comment Cafe, he heard something on the speakerphone but did not understand. And they didn't want to take the phone, he got scared and went outside and left the phone on the planter and went to the store.

Dejan Nikolić Kantar confirms that he is the owner of the Coloseum Game betting shop near the cafe No Comment: "I had no disagreement with Olivera, she argued with me, I don't attack women, I'm a gentleman." However, he did have misunderstandings due to the construction works (on the illegal building where OK Radio was built), but she attacked him the first time when her sister came, and the second time when Veran Matić came and when they threatened him that they had ties to the prosecution and the rest, there is a recording from the Moravče tavern: "She wanted to racketeer me... I can't remember if I came to the construction site, when my dad ordered me to go to the construction site, I did go... otherwise my dad orders me around".

"I have to say that this trial is a crime, it's not normal for me to be in Belgrade (Central Prison)... I don't talk to women, I'm a knight, I don't attack women... And that Veran Matić, who said that I built a wall." I didn't wall up that space of hers because that space doesn't exist... That OK Radio doesn't exist either... I proposed to buy it, to help, because she doesn't have a husband, not taking it away from her..."

He addresses the judge with "you know" to which she warns him, which he justifies with "excuse me madam, I'm a man from the street, lacking good manners...“

A threat that is not a threat

One of the SMS threats addressed to Olivera Vladković, for which the prosecution judged that there were no grounds for initiating proceedings reads:

"Mrs. Olivera, I know you are not a quarrelsome person... I know that you never open those three windows, I know that we do not bother you at all, you go and sign the consent, you do not need to get into big problems..!"

Judge Jelena Dimitrijević conducted the trial efficiently, with authority and knowledge of the matter, preventing all possible obstructions. The hearing of witnesses in the continuation of the trial is scheduled for September 30.

I would like it if the prosecutors in our country were much more involved in the main trial, more engaged, if they were fully at the service and protection of the victims during the process, who in this case, as well as in the case of the trial for the burning of the house of Milan Jovanović and Jela Deljanin, survived secondary victimization during process, with initiatives towards the judge to determine and emphasize the stated threats.

By the way, the mechanism of contact points created within the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, which connects all prosecution offices, all police departments and representatives of the media, worked very well in this case - the prosecution and the Police Directorate in Vranje did their part very efficiently, including the custody of the accused, and prepared the case for trial within a very reasonable time frame.

Facts that further clarify the case - Since September 2021, Dejan Nikolić has been constructing an illegal building with which he walls up the window of the premises owned by OK Radio. The air conditioners remain bricked up and now it is impossible to work in the radio, the equipment is damaged, but that is the least of the problems.

Since the building was built without a single permit from the competent institutions, the building inspectorate stopped the work, and eventually made a decision to demolish the illegal building, but this has not happened yet because until now no construction company has been allowed to undertake the work.

First, in March, the windows at No Comment Caffe are smashed, then threats are made by phone or via SMS, so that on June 1, the threat turned into violent behavior, as defined by the indictment.

Due to the fact that citizens avoid this place of attack out of fear, the work of the cafe was suspended on August 1. The radio was left without two employees who could not continue working under pressure. There is a direct threat to the survival of OK Radio.

During the period of increased threats and attacks on radio and cafes, Dejan Nikolić is serving a prison sentence for organizing illegal gambling, but the prison sentence is carried out in house arrest, with permission to go to work from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and permission to walk from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. So, he is under house arrest, but he can walk practically the whole day, and so, while serving his sentence, he goes to the owner of the cafe with a new threat - which is unprecedented in the really wide range of threats to journalists in this area.

Despite all this, Nikolić's defense is now demanding that the accused be released from custody, "because he will be serving his prison sentence anyway, but in his own home." When the judge rejects that proposal, he launches a barrage of new threats to the victims, the women he has already threatened, and the city of Vranje, which he will destroy: "I will destroy the whole city, I will break everything, judge, you are bullying me... and those who are afraid should be afraid…”

I passed through the crowd several times and only once was heard from someone in the crowd: "Screw you, Matić!". I want to use this opportunity to deny some media reports - I am not the president of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, as well as of the other Working Group for the Protection and Safety of Journalists, but an ordinary member of both bodies... But I will always do my best to protect my colleagues from any kind of threat and danger.

It is clear that it is a show, that the gathered people have been abused and manipulated to the greatest extent, with a lot of social problems, so they are easy to bring with minimal compensation.

The security services must have known that T-shirts with the image of the president would be printed for all participants in the rally, and that his image would be misused. This caused damage to the institution of the president and Aleksandar Vučić himself by misleading the participants of the rally and the media that accompanied the trial and the citizens of Vranje themselves that the highest government institutions support the convicted defendant Dejan Nikolić. I believe that there was an opportunity for the local SNS leadership to intervene in order to prevent the abuse of the institution and the name of the president.

It is clear that this is not a true image of Vranje, but we could not see or hear the real Vranje in the past few months... Even though they themselves are threatened by this kind of criminal occupation. It is extremely important that we all participate together, from the national level, in establishing justice and the rule of law, but we will not be able to do that without the strong desire of the citizens of Vranje.

That is why we should all work together to reduce poverty, exposure to manipulation, to preserve normal channels of communication, media and journalists who are difficult to intimidate. Let's all stand together to protect Svetlana, who has become a kind of symbol of resistance to thugs who usurped the freedom of the media, by attacking property and income, making direct threats to people, but also by creating a general atmosphere of fear. I am sure that judges, prosecutors, police officers, city authorities, journalists, media owners... all free-thinking citizens are also worried about themselves and their families.

Therefore, by defending Svetlana and Olivera, we are defending Vranje and the right to a free life.

Photo: In the fight against oblivion, the Journalists’ Associations of Serbia placed a commemorative plaque at the scene of the abduction of Radio Pristina crew with the following inscription in Serbian and Albanian: “Our colleagues Đuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenić were abducted at this place on 21 August 1998. We are looking for them”. 

The threat was posted on Vidojkovic's Instagram profile from another, which did not have previous post or followers. The post included insults to his family.

"UNS expects the authorities to urgently find the person behind the newly created Instagram profile which Vidijkovic was threatened from," the Association said in a statement.

In the meantime, an official from Serbia's Culture and Information Ministry also condemned the threat.

"Condemnation is the only mechanism at the Ministry's disposal. I hope that law regulations will enable new mechanisms to sanction such threats," Slavica Trifunovic, said.  

 He was clearly untouchable for that state and that government. A far greater mystery is that he is untouchable even today. He remains untouchable for the present-day state, for the state that established the Commission for investigating the killings of journalists, and therefore the murder of Milan Pantić.

That is something none of us in the Commission can come to terms with.

Should we conduct a journalistic analysis, with all the findings we have so far reached (and as a journalist, I have learned quite a bit about police work throughout this process), it is understandable to some extent how inspectors and police officers reason and how they approach and solve the most difficult cases. Admittedly, until recently I couldn’t either accept or understand that, regardless of so much information and, in my opinion, evidence - some cases (including this one) do not gain a court epilogue, i.e. do not enter court proceeding.

Material evidence is crucial. How to obtain material evidence when you have all the other segments necessary for processing? You are familiar with the motive, you know the instigators and the executors, but you can't move forward... I have realized that the first contact with a case, or as it is professionally called - crime scene investigation, is one of the most important elements in any case, including this one. How to obtain material evidence after such an, I can freely say, amateur investigation conducted at the time of committed murder of Milan Pantić exactly twenty years ago?

Is it sufficient knowing who secretly followed Milan around the village, few days before the liquidation?

Is it sufficient knowing who was standing in front of murdered Milan’s apartment building, observing and secretly following him, and in the end, carrying out the liquidation itself?

Is it sufficient knowing the motive for the murder of Milan Pantić?

Is it sufficient knowing the name of the person who killed him, the organization, the criminal group that devised it all?

Is it possible that a powerful individual from so-called democratic government at the time, could have sent a fax to the acting judge in Kragujevac, with an order to reach a verdict as directed, so that the hearing is only a confirmation of the message received via fax and its decision, by which the economic giant, of whose privatization colleague Pantić wrote (and which stands for the direct motive for his murder), had been exempted from paying gas bills (worth $ 12 million)?

Is it sufficient if the person in the court proceeding admits to have received money to complete the initiated privatization, to have found swift codes for payment transactions for the mentioned act, damaging the state and that this person remains unconvicted in the end? (On that note, that person refused to be subjected to polygraph testing for taking part in the case of the murder of our colleague Pantić).

Is it sufficient if the acting prosecutor at the time rejects all information related to the case, abolishing all of the participants, thus even the Prosecutor's Office for Organized Crime cannot, does not want or, for some other reason, is prevented to re-open it, despite additional material evidence submitted in 2013 and acquired from the witness who also testified in the prosecutor’s office?

Yes, what he wrote and what he would have written about the privatization of Cement plant Novi Popovac in Paraćin cost Milan Pantić his life. Had he been aware of the weight of this information, I wonder if he would have written about it, or if he would have hoped his actions could have contribute to the improvement of lives of those workers and region, and ultimately prosperity of Serbia? I think Milan would have written it anyway, perhaps more cautiously, but it would be written and disclosed.

Is it sufficient to identify the killer via the photograph, and the photo robot based on observations of citizens who witnessed his presence at Milan’s apartment building entrance in the evening right before the murder, still without having a court proceedings?

Unfortunately, it must be admitted that despite all these findings, we are standing still and making no progress, still hoping to find a way out of this maze. If I could, I would gladly tell you the names of all actors, but I still hope that a solution will be found for the case to be resolved. Or I, as the Chairman of the Government Commission, will propose a meeting in the upcoming period and submit a final report to the Government, in order to inform the Government of everything we have done so far. In that case, I would leave it to the Government to assess the work of the Commission.

If things remain unchanged, I don’t see what else we could do as a governmental Commission, having in mind we are soon entering the third decade since the killing of Milan Pantić. The presented, logically supported findings are convincing proof that we are close to the goal. Who, why and for what purpose is preventing the initiation of court proceedings and resolution of one of the greatest traumas of our journalism? The answer is being awaited by his family, the media and journalistic community, Serbian society and the international community. The deceased Milan deserves this answer the most, as all he did was doing his job professionally hoping to contribute to the public interest.

Veran Matić, Chairman of the Commission for investigating the killings of journalists

Belgrade, June 10^th 2021

On January 23, a court in Belgrade sentenced Dragoljub Simonović, the former mayor of a Belgrade suburb and a member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, to four years and three months in prison for ordering the attack.

Another defendant, Vladimir Mihailović, an active police officer at the time, received four years in prison for acting as a mediator while Aleksandar Marinkovic, who prosecutors alleged threw the Molotov cocktail, was handed the same sentence in absentia.

“Today’s convictions are an important symbol of justice for Milan Jovanović and a long-awaited victory for all those fighting to end impunity for attacks on journalists in Serbia”, IPI Deputy Director Scott Griffen said. “We hope these guilty verdicts will be a turning point for media freedom in Serbia, where all too often these kinds of attacks and acts of intimidation against media go unpunished. This case shows that efficient collaboration between authorities and an effective judicial system can result in those responsible being quickly identified and prosecuted.

“The new Working Group for Security and Protection of Journalists has an opportunity to build on this momentum and ensure that similar convictions of those wishing to silence crime and corruption reporting in Serbia are replicated in the coming years. Increased reporting of threats, enhanced cooperation between journalist groups and state authorities, and rigorous investigations by law enforcement will be vital for ensuring the Working Group is effective in continuing the progress that was achieved today.”

Arson attack

The attack took place at around 3.30am on December 12, 2018 when two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the property. Jovanovic narrowly survived after his wife, Jela Deljanin, helped him escape through a window while he was unconscious due to smoke inhalation. Their house and car were completely destroyed and Jovanović was hospitalized with minor injuries.

Jovanović believes he was targeted for his reporting on the Zig Info portal about alleged corruption cases involving Simonovic and other local officials in the municipality of Grocka, a suburb of the capital. After the arson attack, the rented apartment in which he and his wife stayed was later burgled by unidentified assailants.

Evidence was gathered quickly and an indictment was filed in record time. Legal proceedings started in 2019 but quickly descended into a marathon, two-year trial delayed numerous times by frequent acts of obstruction by the defense lawyers. In issuing the verdict, Judge Slavko Žugić stated that the defense attorneys had obstructed the procedure, prompting Simonović and his lawyer to leave the courtroom.

Simonović had plead not guilty and changed his statement during the trial. He was charged with ordering the attack on the house as a warning to Jovanović. A warrant has been issued for Marinković, who remains a fugitive. The defendants have the right to appeal.

After the verdict was announced, Jovanović told reporters in front of the court: “”I now live and work under police protection, but I don’t know how long that protection will last. I hope that this verdict will be a harbinger of more media freedom in Serbia”.

The president of the Commission for the Investigation of the Murder of Journalists, Veran Matić, welcome the verdict and described it as “justice at work”. Before the court hearing, the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) said that the verdict should send an unequivocal message that crimes against journalists will not go unpunished.

The new Working Group for the Safety of Journalists in Serbia was created by the government in late November 2020 and will be formed by representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office and several ministries, as well as representatives of the prosecution, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Serbia, journalists’ and media associations, and the Serbian Ombudsman.

The Commission for investigating the killings of journalists welcomes the activities of the Specialized Chambers in The Hague, also known as the KLA Crimes Tribunal, to establish responsibility for crimes committed in Kosovo and Metohija.

After the first indictments were published, the Commission is disappointed that they do not consider any cases of murder and kidnapping of journalists.

The Commission notes that, at the moment, Kosovo and Metohija is the area with by far the largest number of unsolved cases of kidnapped and killed journalists, as many as 17 cases, of which only one was resolved by the Hague Tribunal (Hajredin Balaj was sentenced to 13 years in prison for killing Shaban Hoti, professor of Russian language at the University of Pristina, who worked as an interpreter for the Russian state television crew).

The fate of Ranko Perenic and Djuro Slavuj, who were abducted by KLA members and taken in an unknown direction, on August 21, 1998, near Velika Hoca, is still unresolved.

To this day, the fate of journalist Ismail Berbatovci is also unknown, who went on a scheduled interview with a member of the main staff of the operational zone, Rama Buja, on July 23, 1998, as a journalist.

The abduction of Nebojsa Radosevic and Vladimir Dobricic on October 18, 1998, and their 40 days detention in several KLA prisons when they were subject to harassment, is also a war crime for which there are many traces of the perpetrators.

Afrim Maliqi was killed on December 2, 1998, in Prishtina. The murder was never solved.

Enver Maloku was killed on January 11, 1999, in Pristina.

Ljubomir Knezevic disappeared on May 6, 1999, near Vushtrri.

Gabriel Grüner and Volker Krämer, Stern journalists, and driver and translator Sanol Aliti were killed on June 13, 1999, at the Dulje Pass.

Aleksandar Simovic was abducted on August 21, 1999, in Pristina, and his remains were found on June 8, 2001.

Krist Gegaj was killed in Istok in September 1999 (he disappeared on September 12, and his body was found on September 13).

Momir Stokuca was killed on September 21, 1999, in his house in Pristina.

Marjan Melonashi, disappeared on September 9, 2000.

Shefki Popova was killed on September 10, 2000, in Vushtrri.

Xhemail Mustafa was killed on November 23, 2000, in Pristina.

Bekim Kastrati was killed on October 19, 2001, in the village of Laush.

Bardul Ajeti was assassinated on June 3, 2005, and died on June 25, 2005.

All the information that the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) and the Commission gathered is at the disposal of the court.

The Commission calls the Specialist Chambers for Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) crimes not to allow impunity for the murders of journalists in Kosovo to remain a burden which will permanently jeopardize freedom of the media and journalists, it is said in a media statement. It added that all the information that the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) and the Commission gathered is at the disposal of the court.

In April 2019, four former spies working for the State Security Department in the former Yugoslavia were convicted for the killing and each sentenced to between 20 and 30 years in prison, in a landmark ruling for impunity and press freedom.

Now, the Special Department for Organized Crime of the Court of Appeals in Belgrade has ruled to overturn the first-instance verdict and return the case to court for a retrial, prolonging a 21-year fight for justice.

In its justification, the Court said the appeal was accepted due to a “significant violation of the provisions of the criminal procedure” regarding the decision to find all four suspects guilty, while leaving who ultimately pulled the trigger unnamed.

In the initial verdict, two alleged hitmen were named as “accomplices”, though who actually executed the murder was recorded by the Court as an “unidentified person” due to a lack of sufficient evidence.

The Appeal Court’s decision, published on September 7, said that not identifying the “direct perpetrator” was “contradictory” and not “sufficiently clear” and that the retrial would aim to eliminate “deficiencies and violations” surrounding the issue.

Ivana Stevanovic, of the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation, an organization set up in the journalist’s name that has long fought for justice, expressed disappointment and told IPI that it was uncertain how long the process would take, as it was currently unclear whether the retrial would re-examine evidence about the “unknown person” partially or in full.

Slobodan Ruzic, the attorney of Slavko Curuvija’s family, said he hoped the retrial would deal with the shortcomings raised by the Court but ultimately confirm the first-instance conviction. “I expect that the repeated procedure will not last long and I expect that a conviction will be passed again”, he told the Beta agency. He added: “Of course, the injured party and I, as their attorney, are not happy about this decision.”

Scott Griffen, IPI’s deputy director, said: “This decision underscores how incredibly difficult it is to achieve full justice for the killing of journalists in Serbia. This retrial could foreseeably take many months or even years, further delaying justice and prolonging closure for the family.

“With the first trial marked by controversial decisions, allegations of government obstruction and threats against investigators and witnesses, any new trial is also likely to be equally as politicized and problematic. We hope that the court will render a conviction again without undue delay and that those who ordered, planned and committed the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija to finally be sent to prison. The fight for impunity – in Serbia and around the world – remains an uphill one, but it must go on.”

Veran Matić, president of the Commission for the Investigation of the Murders of Journalists in Serbia, also expressed disappointment at the decision and said he expected the new trial to be “short-lived”.

Justice delayed

The ruling followed a special three-day hearing from July 7 to 9 where a panel of judges heard arguments from both legal teams. The retrial represents a victory for the defense attorneys of the accused, who had long sought to force a re-examination of the evidence.

However, the retrial was also requested by the deputy prosecutor for organized crime, Milenko Mandić, who achieved the initial conviction. Despite the prosecutor’s requests largely being met and heavy sentences being handed down by the court, Mandić appealed to resolve the “unknown person” dispute and attain a definitive verdict on which of the two assassins identified as being at the murder scene pulled the trigger.

After the July hearing, the Court could either have upheld the judgment, changed the verdict itself, or approved the appeal and sent it back for retrial.

Stevanovic told IPI that neither Curuvija’s family nor their legal team had been informed by the Court about its decision, which was published on its website without advance warning, and instead found about through media reports. No statement was issued by the Court about the ruling. Rather than publish a full explanation for the decision, it published a summary on its website. The full documents will be sent to stakeholders.

Radomir Markovic, the former head of the secret police, and Milan Radonjic, the former head of the Belgrade intelligence branch, were jailed for 30 years each. Former intelligence officers Ratko Romic and Miroslav Kurak were also handed 20-year prison terms for aggravated murder. Kurak is still on the run.

In the first verdict, the Court said Markovic had told Radonjic of plans to murder the journalist and that Radonjic then conspired with Romic and Kurak to carry out the killing.

In the initial verdict, the court also said an “unknown person” had ordered the hit. Curuvija’s family have in the past accused Milosevic, who died in 2006. The stated motive for the murder in the now overturned convictions was Ćuruvija’s “public appearance in the country and abroad and criticism of the holder of political power, and in order to preserve the existing structure of power”.

IPI is concerned by the decision today by a court of appeals in #Belgrade to overturn the historic guilty verdict for 4 people convicted of murdering #Serbian journalist Slavko #Curuvija in 1999

The ruling means there will now be a re-trial. @scfondacijahttps://t.co/5roTbkeeGq

— IPI - The Global Network for Press Freedom (@globalfreemedia) September 7, 2020

According to the journalists’ organisations, the most severe case is one of Beta’s reporter, Zikica Stevanovic, who had to be taken to hospital for head injuries. He told UNS what happened last night in Belgrade: “As they (police officers) hit me, I began to fall reflexively, because of the blows, but also to show them that I was not resisting. Although I landed, they continued to beat me. How many of them, I do not know exactly. Judging by the traces of batons from the leaves to the back and head, maybe two, maybe three.”

For the second time in two days, Nova S portal journalist Milica Božinović was attacked by the police despite repeatedly identifying herself as a journalist.

Journalists working for the public broadcaster RTS Milan Srdić and Lazar Vukadinović were physically attacked by protesters in Novi Sad. On that occasion, the cameraman Vukadinović’s hand was injured and the camera was broken, while Srdić experienced verbal insults. In Nis, the RTS journalist team experienced physical assaults and verbal insults, and demonstrators poured water into their camera.

“It is of particular concern is the fact that the police used serious physical force against the journalists, despite the fact that they had previously identified themselves. Bearing in mind that last night’s attacks were more brutal than the previous night, and that the police obviously do not respond to appeals to protect journalists and not to attack them, we interpret this behavior as a deliberate attack on those whose task is to report Serbian citizens on events of public interest,” said NUNS in a statement.

All the attacks were reported to the Mapping Media Freedom platform and will also be notified to the Council of Europe platform for the safety of journalists.

“We call the police and citizens to stand up for the protection of journalists and enable them to work unhindered,” said UNS in a statement.

SINOS recalled that the police must ensure a safe working environment for journalists and media workers and not allow attacks on media houses.

The EFJ and IFJ call on the Serbian authorities to conduct a swift and transparent investigation to ensure those responsible for the attacks are brought to justice.

“Such physical violence against citizens and journalists are intolerable. We urge the police and the Serbian authorities to protect and respect the work of the journalists reporting from the field, who must feel safe to do their work,” said EFJ President Mogens Blicher Bjerregard.

IFJ General Secretary, Anthony Bellanger, said: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms the violent attacks against Serbian journalists for simply doing their job. We stand in solidarity with the victims and fully support our affiliates’ call for a thorough investigation of the incidents. No aggression against media workers should go unpunished”.