MEDIA-YUGOSLAVIA: Clampdown On Press Freedom Continues

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jun 26 2000 (IPS) - The government clampdown on the media continues in Serbia with the recent arrest of a journalist on charges of espionage.

This follows on last month’s forced closure by government of the two most popular opposition-oriented radio and television stations in Serbia, B2-92 and Studio B.

Serbian journalist, Miroslav Filipovic (49), was recently charged with espionage and the spreading of false news by a Military Court in the southern Serbian town of Nis.

Filipovic worked in the Serbian town of Kraljevo (172 kms south of the capital) as a correspondent with the Belgrade independent daily, Danas. He was also a stringer for the French news agency, Agence France Presse, and the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).

Filipovic faces a, minimum three year and maximum 15 year, jail term if convicted. A trial date has yet to be set.

“The trial that my husband is going to stand for is a trial against free journalism in general,” Slavica Filipovic, wife of Miroslav Filipovic, told IPS.

“The only thing he did was to do his job – write about things that are happening all around us, saying what ordinary people think about them. But under the circumstances here, this will be a political trial,” she adds.

The Military Court in Nis has denied Filipovic’s bail application saying that ‘Filipovic might influence the witnesses’ or run away from the country. This is despite the fact that Filipovic was forced to surrender all travel documents upon arrest.

“In his reports, Miroslav never left the stand of a journalist,” his attorney, Zoran Ateljevic, told IPS. “He worked as a professional, relying on legitimate journalists’ sources and wrote about the different life situations within those limits,” he adds.

The controversial articles include those written by Filipovic on the political situation in Serbia. Like many other journalists working for the independent media, Filipovic wrote about dissatisfaction with the regime and country’s economic collapse caused by the isolationist politics of Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

His articles focussed on the growing repression, food shortages, problems of Serb refugees from wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia, Kosovo, and atrocities against non-Serbs.

“I’m not a spy. All the stories I’ve written were printed under my name and spies do not do such things,” Filipovic told IPS before being taken to custody. “The things I wrote about could be described only in such a manner, no pink colour,” he added.

In sharp contrast to reality, government-run media paint an idyllic picture of life in Serbia. Their favourite point is that Serbia ‘won’ the war against the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, in the 11 weeks of destructive air strikes of Western military alliance in 1999.

Another is “the successful reconstruction of the country under the leadership of Milosevic”. Their persistent propaganda campaign brands all different minded people as ‘traitors’, ‘NATO agents’ or even ‘terrorists’. Opposition parties, their leaders and non-government media and their journalists are named as such on a regular basis.

The case against Filipovic has resulted in a fierce public outcry from journalists, human rights activists and Non Governmental Organisations, NGO’s. The Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS) has launched an international campaign fighting for the freedom of expression and for Filipovic’s release.

“Today it is Filipovic, tomorrow it will be any other journalist that says or writes anything that the regime does not like,” Gordana Susa, president of IJAS told IPS. “We know too well that even our lives can be at stake in such cases,” she added referring to the case of the late Slavko Curuvija.

Curuvija (50), owner and editor in chief of the daily, Dnevni Telegraf, which was highly critical of the regime, was gunned down in broad daylight in front of his Belgrade home in April 1999. His assailants remain unknown.

Filipovic’s case was brought to the attention of Jiri Dienstibier, special United Nations rapporteur for human rights in the former Yugoslavia, who visited Serbia last week. The UN official met with the representatives of IJAS and Slavica Filipovic, who presented him with the case of Miroslav Filipovic.

Addressing journalists after the meeting, Dienstbier said that he was ‘very disturbed’ about the recent wave of repression against ‘opposition views’ and media in Serbia. Dienstbier previously held talks with Serbian minister of justice, Dragoljub Jankovic.

“The main reason for my visit was to assess the situation with the media and opposition…I warned government officials that it is inadmissible to treat free opinion as a crime… I am really very disturbed by the developments of the situation here,” Dienstbier said.

He warned against ‘criminalising all the views’ opposed to the official ones of the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic.

“If it continues, if the opposition is (forced to go) underground, and if newspapers and radio stations are closed, it may create a very bad (and) explosive situation for people and for human rights,” Dienstbier said.