Statement by the members of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists from Journalist and Media Associations
In the previous days, a dirty and fabricated campaign was launched in the tabloids Informer and Alo, as well as in the daily newspapers Politika , Večernje novosti and on Television Informer, based on a long-published photo taken at the public meeting of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists in Novi Sad, which was held on May 30, 2023.
Regarding the untrue and malicious information that appeared in the aforementioned media, the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists points out that the photo, which depicts the Public Prosecutor of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad Slobodan Josimović, the Chief Prosecutor for High-Tech Crime Boris Majlat and journalist Dinko Gruhonjić, comes from the aforementioned meeting of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, held two years ago in Novi Sad, which was attended by journalists from several newsrooms.
The permanent working group for the safety of journalists has existed since 2017. Over time, a system of contact points was established in each prosecutor’s office, each police station and relevant journalist associations and media associations. Prosecutors Slobodan Josimović and Boris Majlat were present at the meeting in question two years ago in the role of contact points in front of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad, i.e. the Special Prosecutor’s Office for High-Tech Crime, while journalist Dinko Gruhonjić attended this meeting as a journalist who is most often exposed to numerous threats, pressures and other criminal offenses.
Such meetings of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists are continuously held all over the country, and after them, the public is informed through announcements and photographs. Everything is more than transparent and, all the more so, all constructions presented in tabloid texts are a figment of the author’s imagination and are calculated to cause harm, both to the holders of the most responsible positions in public prosecutors’ offices, and to long-standing independent professional journalists. In this way, damage is caused to the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists itself, as one of the few working groups that has largely justified its existence so far with its practical activities and initiatives.
Therefore, it is a big dilemma in whose interest it is to target prosecutors Boris Majlat, Slobodan Josimović, Branko Stamenković, as well as journalists Dinko Gruhonjić and Veran Matić with ordinary untruths and unfounded constructions, full of hate speech, at this moment and in this way. The compliance of the mentioned media within the aforementioned shameless campaign in which some members of the ruling coalition also participate, based on false premises, shows that there is an interested party who does not hesitate from the media-wide anti-systemic campaign, which threatens the foundations of the legal order. Such wanton activities strike at the very foundations of one branch of government, endangering individual journalists at the same time, which causes additional concern at a time of heightened tensions and polarization within society.
At the same time, this kind of campaign is taking place at a time when the local government is trying to fulfill, at any cost, the prerequisites for opening Cluster 3 and receiving money from the Fund for the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans. One of those preconditions is the amendment of the media legislation, which is closely monitored by representatives of the European Commission and representatives of the international community. Such campaigns cause immeasurable damage to the state and discourage actors who try to put the articles of the law into practice, which is certainly not the case with such an organized dangerous campaign that has a foothold in some government structures. That is why the same government has an obligation to prevent and sanction such actors and to warn them in time to stop such activities, so that the spiral of verbal violence and lies does not turn into serious consequences of physical attacks, which are becoming more and more frequent.
Journalists in Serbia are faced with a multiple duplicating of threats and attacks in the past year, with a decrease in the efficiency of police work to detect attackers, with the police ignoring attacks on journalists. The attack on both the prosecutors and the victims of the attack indicates that the government in Serbia is planning to tighten and brutalize the attitude towards journalists and everyone who tries to protect journalists from threats and attacks, as well as towards all political actors who have a different opinion in relation to the ruling party.
We invite the OSCE, which is an observer in the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, the European Commission, which monitors the work of this body from year to year, to protest in all available ways, with the aim of stopping the attack on journalists and prosecutors related to the Permanent Working Group, but also on all prosecutors and judges who respect the laws of this country.
Press release from the meeting of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, from which the photo of Miroslav Janković, OSCE, member of the SRG, was misused
Ako ne bude novinara, neće biti nikakve kontrole samovlašća u društvu – Javni servis
If there are no journalists, there will be no control of autocracy in society – Public service
Association of Independent Electronic Media
Online Media Association
Media Association
Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia
Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina
Journalists’ Association of Serbia
