(ANEM/IFEX) – The following is a 25 March 1999 ANEM press release: **Updates IFEX alerts of 25 March and 24 March 1999** PRESS FREEDOM IN FR YUGOSLAVIA GRAVELY VIOLATED Belgrade — March 25, 1999 The Association of Independent Electronic Media in FR Yugoslavia (ANEM) today expressed grave concern over the increasing repression against journalists in […]
(ANEM/IFEX) – The following is a 25 March 1999 ANEM press release:
**Updates IFEX alerts of 25 March and 24 March 1999**
PRESS FREEDOM IN FR YUGOSLAVIA GRAVELY VIOLATED
Belgrade — March 25, 1999
The Association of Independent Electronic Media in FR Yugoslavia (ANEM)
today expressed grave concern over the increasing repression against
journalists in FR Yugoslavia. ANEM condemned the decision of the Serbian
government to expel all foreign journalists from countries involved in
the
NATO air strikes and the closures of two local media outlets, one of
which
has resulted in the death of one man.
On March 24, satellite equipment of EBU, European Broadcasters Union,
was
confiscated, despite the fact that the Yugoslav Federal
Telecommunications
Ministry had issued the EBU with a satellite broadcasting licence.
According to EBU co-ordinator Bruno Beekman’s statement to
Belgrade-based
news agency Beta, a group of ten men who refused to provide any
identification came to EBU’s offices at Belgrade’s Hotel
Intercontinental.
Having inspected the EBU staff’s identifications and forced them to
stand
face to the wall, they took the equipment, despite the fact that the
staff
showed a satellite licence from the Telecommunications Ministry.
Meanwhile, a group of about 20 journalists who were observing the
situation
in Belgrade from the roof of the Hotel Hyatt were briefly detained.
On March 25, Serb police closed down the Albanian-language daily Koha
Ditore
in Pristina and killed the newspaper’s security guard. Koha was the last
remaining Albanian-language newspaper in Kosovo. Koha’s owner Veton
Surroi,
currently in hiding, told media that the staff no longer had access to
the
newspaper’s premises and that the lawyer defending the paper against
charges
under Serbia’s Public Information Act had been abducted, together with
his
two sons.
CNN’s driver and interpreter were beaten up in Pristina on the same day.
Later in the day, a majority of the correspondents of the Western media
left
the country as a result of the announcement of an expulsion order by
Serbian
Information Minister Aleksandar Vucic, who said all correspondents of
the
media based in the countries who had participated in the NATO air raids
against Yugoslavia had to go. His order accused journalists of
“instigating
NATO’s aggressive activities which were aimed at destroying the
constitutional order and territorial integrity of Serbia and Yugoslavia
and
of misinforming the world.”
In a news conference later in the day, Yugoslav Federal Deputy Prime
Minister Vuk Draskovic welcomed members of the foreign press to stay.
“We
need you because we need you to report the truth,” Draskovic said. He
later
condemned the Serbian Information Minister’s expulsion order.
Radio 021, an ANEM affiliate in Novi Sad, capital of the Vojvodina
province,
was banned in the evening. The official justification of the ban was
that
the station had not paid the frequency tax for February.
ANEM expressed grave concern over these drastic violations of the
freedom of
the press in FR Yugoslavia and stressed the importance of the free flow
of
information for the establishment of peace, an effective resumption of
political negotiations and stability in the region. ANEM pledged it
would
continue to provide its audience with as much professional information
as
possible despite gravely deteriorated conditions for professional
journalistic work. ANEM called on all groups and individuals to support
similar efforts.