Eco Watch Heralding Protests in Front of RTS

Aleksandar Jovanovic Cuta (BETAPHOTO/EMIL VAS)

Bojan Simisic, the founder of the Eco Watch association, said on Aug. 19 that his organization was planning a rally outside the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation (RTS) to demand greater media visibility, which it needed to warn at “the abuse of a criminal offence defined as a forced overthrow of the constitutional system," which has been broadly used as the reason for detaining environmental activists.

"We need to shift the focus from lithium to the rights of activists. In the next ten days, the Eco Watch will focus on bringing together all activists, media outlets and human rights organizations, on order to reach a consensus on the struggle that has been going on for a year already," Simisic was quoted as saying by the Danas.rs portal.

The protest in front of the state-run RTS, not scheduled yet, will be a crucial step in that fight, the Eco Watch founder said.

The protesters will demand 30 minutes on a TV channel broadcasting nationwide and an independent host, to open a debate about the situation in Serbia, "which RTS does not report on." They will also demand the release of three activists - one from Eco Watch, and two from other environmental movements.

Aleksandar Jovanovic nicknamed Cuta, a Member of Parliament and president of the Ecological Uprising, asked the RTS director general, Dragan Bujosevic, to ensure that the public service provides live coverage of the protests in Valjevo and Ivanjica, to be held on Aug. 19 in response to reports that a lithium mine will be opened in the area.

Jovanovic said to BETA that RTS was a public media service whose duty was to professionally report on, as he put it, one of the biggest problems the citizens of Serbia had encountered.