By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Dec 26 1994 (IPS)

Serbian journalists, resisting government’s attempt to tighten its hold on the national media, are refusing to work with a senior state official who was put in charge of Belgrade’s only independent daily newspaper at the weekend.

The placing of Dragutin Brcin, the federal minister of information as acting general manager and editor-in-chief of the “Borba”, came after a Belgrade court ruled Friday that the newspaper did not have a licence to continue to publish.

The court rejected the paper’s registration as a shareholder company, effectively putting it under the control of the government of the Socialist Party of Serbia, (SPS), headed by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

The paper, which has often been critical of the government’s nationalist policies, has been operating independently for the past three years after being registered as a shareholding company in 1991.

The court decision and the government move have met with widespread criticism from within journalistic community and from opposition parties, with ‘Borba’s’ editorial staff vowing not to work with the new management

“Even if the court order withstands appeal, the government must wait until ‘Borba’ was effectively struck from the shareholder registry, registered anew and issued a licence to operate. only then can they (authorities) take over,” said Branislav Tapuskovic, one of ‘Borba’s lawyers.

Another ‘Borba’ lawyer, who preferred not to be identified, said the government had influenced the court into revoking the paper’s licence to operate, saying that “the charade over the registration or legal licence to publish is only the way to grab ‘Borba’ and kill it”.

Brcin has meanwhile encountered a hostile response from the newspaper’s editorial staff who defiantly managed to print an “extra” Sunday edition which was critical of the court decision and in which they expressed their determination not to cooperate with the new acting chief.

The “extra” edition was printed at a private publishing company. However, most of the distribution firms refused to sell the paper forcing the journalists to take to the streets themselves in sub-zero temperatures to sell the paper.

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