Predrag Simonovic, a retired Major of the Serbian Internal Affairs Ministry and a columnist for the Belgrade weekly Radar, said that threats against his family are directly linked to his journalism and his past involvement in high-profile cases of organized crime and the murders of journalists.
Speaking to the Stara Pazova-based portal pazovacke.rs, Simonovic revealed that on February 15, his wife and ten-year-old daughter received disturbing video calls from a foreign number. These calls followed a series of threats Simonovic himself received regarding an article recently published in Radar.
He said he believes his family was targeted as a means of intimidation, intended to force him to stop writing and speaking publicly about national security issues and the inner workings of state institutions.
Simonovic announced that he would be “relocating his wife and daughter out of Serbia.”
“I accepted my own fate long ago, first on the battlefield and then during my time in the service. I am staying here and I will continue to tilt at windmills. But I plan to move my wife, who is also a retired police major and former forensics expert, and my daughter, a fourth-grade student, out of the country. It is clear that we have no protection here,” Simonovic said.
He noted that the reported the incident to the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Internal Affairs Ministry, but that he has not received a response. He thanked journalists’ associations and civil society organizations that have called for a full investigation into the matter.
Simonovic stressed that the safety of journalists in Serbia is severely compromised and that such intimidation is becoming a standard tactic to silence those who expose organized crime and abuses of power within the system.
Source: N1
