25. 07. 2008

ANEM SEVERELY CONDEMNS VIOLENT PHYSICAL ATTACK AGAINST A RTV B92 CAMERAMAN, CONTINUOUS ATTACKS AGAINST REPORTERS AND CAMERAMEN, AND ABSENCE OF REACTIONS FROM THE RELEVANT STATE INSTITUTIONS

Belgrade, July 25, 2008 – Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) severely condemns repeated attacks against reporters and cameramen. After the attacks against reporters and cameramen that took place in Novi Sad and Belgrade on July 22 and 23, Bosko Brankovic, a cameraman with an ANEM member station, Radio Television B92, was attacked on July 24 while he was making footage of the protest organized by several so-called patriotic organizations and aided by the Serbian Radical Party in Belgrade on the occasion of the arrest of Radovan Karadzic. 

B92 reported that the attack took place when an irascible young man in a line of people that walked past Turkish Embassy rushed at the B92 cameraman while he was filming protestors who were breaking a camera of the FoNet News Agency photographer. The attacker kicked Bosko Brankovic and knocked him down, and then went on kicking him. He thus caused the cameraman suffer several serious injuries and at the same time damaged a RTV B92 camera. During this attack, the mass of people repeatedly shouted: "Strike, strike the reporter”. This incident took place in the immediate vicinity of police officers who choose not to react, although it was clear that it was an incident involving a reporter on duty as a victim.

ANEM would thus like to show their full solidarity with their colleagues who suffered these attacks, and also to call on all the relevant institutions and individuals to identify the perpetrators and bring them before justice.  ANEM would like to point out that any kind of pressure exerted to influence media professionals in their work, be it reporting on the organized citizens' protests or, and especially, physical assaults and beating, is impermissible and illegal.  ANEM thus demands that the identity of the people who attacked the reporters and cameramen be established as soon as possible, and that they are punished according to the law.

ANEM points out that the relevant state institutions have to provide adequate conditions for citizens' gatherings to take place according to legal regulations by providing for the physical safety of the reporters who report on these gatherings as a part of their professional tasks and job. Organizers of the citizens' protests that are not organized and realized according to law have to be held responsible and penalized for their offence. Responsibility for incidents that take place during citizens' protests lies with the organizers of these protests, and the people responsible for incidents have to be brought before justice for the attacks that happened yesterday in Belgrade.

ANEM especially points out that similar attacks against reporters have been happening for several successive days now, and that such continuous attacks and absence of any reaction from the relevant state institutions have confirmed that an atmosphere of fear has gradually been created in Serbia to prevent media organizations from performing their primary function, so indispensable in a society that strives to be a democratic community, and that is to offer full and objective information to the general public on all the issues that they are entitled to be fully informed about. ANEM will insist again that the responsible ones take decisive measures in order to prevent creation of such an atmosphere of fear, that the perpetrators are brought before justice, and that media professionals, together with the right of the general public to full and objective relevant information, are fully protected.

ANEM President
Sasa Mirkovic

Related news:

* The Silent Threats to Serbian Media Freedom, Balkan Insight, 30th June 2008, author RTV B92 Director Veran Matic
* B92 Statement, B92 Cameraman Attacked during Today’s Pro-Karadzic Protests, Belgrade, 24th July 2008
* ANEM to Condemn Attack on Reporters and Cameraman during Protests in Belgrade and Novi Sad, Belgrade, 24th July 2008
* CPJ condemns attack on B92 cameraman, New York, 25th July 2008
* Reporters Without Borders Press Release, Paris, 25th July 2008
* IJAS Letter to the Minister of Interior Affairs, Belgrade, 25 July 2008
* IFJ and EFJ Condemn Attacks on Journalists in Belgrade and Demand Protection for Media, 30 July 2008
* Charges Brought Against Attackers on B92 Journalists, Belgrade, 5th August, 2008
* Attacks on the Media in Serbia: Recent and not so recent Past, Belgrade, 21st August 2008, author ANEM Chairman Sasa Mirkovic