UNS: Statements by Vucic, Officials May Be Occasion for Violence Against Media

Aleksandar Vucic (BETAPHOTO/PREDSEDNISTVO SRBIJE/DIMITRIJE GOLL/MO)

The Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS) said on July 1 that public officials, including President Aleksandar Vucic, were committing political violence against certain media outlets and that Vucic's statement that "what Nova S and N1 are doing is pure terrorism" was not just "unacceptable, but may also be an occasion for violence against media outlets."

Earlier on July 1, UNS announced that it had recorded as many as 100 cases of endangerment of journalists in the first half of the year, 41 more than in the same period last year, and that by far the biggest number of physical attacks on journalists for the last five years had been registered.

This year has also been marked by the layoffs of 17 journalists who supported the student protests or opposed the editorial policy of the media houses they were working at, said the Association. It also stated that six cases of pressure and 16 cases of obstruction at work had been recorded.

While no police detaining of journalists was recorded in the Association's database last year, this year UNS has registered five such cases, as well as an attempt to wiretap a journalist of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the public dissemination of public broadcaster RTS journalists' personal information.