A Montenegrin journalist was banned from entering Serbia on Monday and was put on a flight back to Podgorica just days after the same thing happened to a Vijesti TV anchor.
The border police at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport stopped BIRN Montengro staffer Vuk Maras from entering Serbia when he arrived from Podgorica. Maras said in a Facebook post that he wanted to go to downtown Belgrade while waiting for a connecting flight to Rome later in the day. He was held for over an hour and put on a flight back to Podgorica.
“I was handed an order banning me from Serbia by the police at Nikola Tesla Airport in Belgrade while on my way to Rome for a conference. I had a long break between flights and wanted to go downtown,” he said in the post. “I believe this is part of reciprocal measures by Belgrade towards people from Montenegro’s media community and that I “earned” this ban for my criticism of media freedom in Serbia,” he added.
He was put on an Air Serbia flight to Podgorica and was told the crew would hand him his passport once they landed at the Montenegrin capital.
The ban comes in the wake of the Montenegrin government’s decision to ban the owner of the pro-regime TV informer Dragan J Vucicevic from Montenegro. Maras is the second Montenegrin journalist banned from Serbia after Vijesti TV anchor Petar Komnenic was told by border police he would not be allowed back into Serbia as he left to go home to Podgorica.
Source: N1
