Socialist party of Serbia official in Niš and president of the local city assembly Igor Novaković yesterday wrote on his Facebook account post targeting journalists and activists from Niš, including Zoran Jovanović, Mladen Jovanović, Danijel Dašić, Ljubica Jocić, Mladen Velojić and Nikola Stojanović.
“He (Mladen Velojić) leaves Nikola Stojanović as director, who threatened me that if I didn’t appear at their debate during the election, he would talk bad things about me on all the media that are related to them. Last year, they received over 22 million in donations. And who are those media you can tell by the list of donors”, stated Novaković in a post on Facebook with attached screenshots of the donors of the Niš Media and Reform Center, as well as personal data of activists.
Director of Media and Reform Center Nikola Stojanović says that he knows Novaković personally and that he did not threaten him.
He states that they filmed program at the Media Center during the pre-election campaign for the local elections in Niš and that Novaković was supposed to be a guest, however, he canceled the guest appearance at the last moment, and Stojanović told him that the presenter would mention it in the show. As he says, they have not contacted since then.
Stojanović also says that Novaković was called yesterday by a journalist from the Media and Reform Center to get a statement regarding another topic, and that he was upset because they did not publish his denials about the writing of another media. After that conversation, Novaković shared the controversial post on the social network.
“This is a classic pressure, to prevent the possibility of us writing anything about him… He is now calling us foreign mercenaries and publishing our personal information.” We think that this is absolutely unacceptable and we do not want to communicate in such a way,” says Stojanović.
The Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia strongly condemns the targeting and unauthorized publication of personal data of journalists and activists by high-ranking SPS official Igor Novaković.
We believe that the narrative about foreign mercenaries, which Novaković uses, is extremely dangerous and threatens the safety of journalists. That’s why we demand that he immediately stop targeting and start answering journalist’s questions because political officials are accountable to the public for their work.
Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia
Belgrade, October 17, 2024
