18 July 2005

Alert

Broadcaster forced to evacuate following threat


Incident details

threatened
(CPJ/IFEX) - The following is a 15 July 2005 CPJ press release:

SERBIA & MONTENEGRO: Broadcaster forced to evacuate following threat

New York, July 15, 2005?The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a bomb threat made late Thursday night against the Belgrade-based independent radio and television station B92.

An anonymous caller told a B92 security guard that a bomb would explode in an hour inside the station's offices because of its "anti-Serb campaign," according to local news reports and CPJ interviews.

B92 director Veran Matic told CPJ in a telephone interview today that about 15 staffers were evacuated from the premises for about two hours while the police examined the building and its surroundings. No explosive devices were found.

B92 said in a statement that the threat was made after Vjerica Radeta, a member of Parliament from the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), called the station "mercenary and anti-Serb" during a debate. SRS vice-president Aleksandar Vucic made a similar charge against the station on July 9.

The station also received a bomb threat on Monday after a live broadcast of the commemoration of the 1995 massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, B92 journalist Marko Mrkic told CPJ.

Matic told CPJ that threats against B92 have intensified during the last year, and many have been made directly against him and his family. "The radicalization and the rise of the number of threats are the results of the inefficient reaction of the government and the police to the past threats," Matic told CPJ.

B92 has provided extensive news coverage of politically sensitive war crimes issues in Serbia and is the only broadcaster in the region providing live coverage of the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague-based United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

CPJ is a New York?based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information in Serbia, visit http://www.cpj.org



Source:

Committee to Protect Journalists
330 7th Ave., 11th Floor
New York, NY 10001
USA
info (@) cpj.org
Phone: +1 212 465 1004
Fax: +1 212 465 9568
 

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More on this case

ANEM warns of serious threat to media freedom 4 September 2009 ANEM protests amendments to media laws 17 July 2009 ANEM demands investigation into threats against B92, protests proposed amendment to Public Information Act 18 July 2005

Serbia

ANEM condemns administrative harassment of radio station in Zajecar 30 March 2012 IPI observes increasing pressure on local journalists 13 March 2012 ANEM condemns attack on Studio B television crew 23 February 2012 ANEM concerned about proposed Cinematography Act 16 December 2011 Radio-Television Prima's studio vandalised 18 October 2011 See all alerts: Serbia


 
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