30. 03. 2011

ANEM: PROTEST OVER CRIMINAL INDICTMENT AGAINST “CACANSKE NOVINE”

Belgrade, March 30, 2011 - The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) is protesting over the criminal sentence for libel against the owner, Director and Responsible Editor of Radio Ozon from Cacak - ANEM member station.

The Primary Court in Cacak found that Stojan Markovic, with his comment "The Time for Settling the Bills has Come: Davidovic, Jocic, Sarancic... the Next one be Ready..." and the satire "The Impotent Mandarin" published in Cacanske novine, is guilty of slander against the former minister Velimir Ilic. Markovic was fined with 100.000 dinars.

We remind that in April last year, the Higher Court in Cacak ordered Markovic to pay Ilic 180.000 dinars of damages over the same texts published in February 2009, for anguish and suffering due to damaged honor and reputation. In the meantime, the Appellate Court upheld that decisions, while Stojan Markovic appealed with the Constitutional Court and the related proceedings are still underway.

ANEM finds it unacceptable to have court decisions in litigation or libel proceedings restricting freedom of expression, particularly over critical or satiric texts about high state officials or politicians, as in the case of Markovic and Ilic. We hereby remind that Ilic was, until July 2008, a minister in the Government of the Republic of Serbia. Prior to that, he was for a long time at the helm of the local government and the Mayor of Cacak, the town in which the controversial texts were published in the first place. Ilic is also the President of Nova Srbija, a parliamentary party with nine MPs in the current Serbian Parliament.

Court decisions which do not seem to take into consideration the legally provided restriction to the protection of privacy of state officials and politicians in the case of information that are relevant to the citizens in view of the positions occupied by such persons, and particularly criminal sentences disregarding the right to substantiated criticism by journalists, are threatening to undermine the basic function of the media in democratic society - to inform the public about matters the public is entitled to know - as well as to additionally hamper the Serbian media with the already rife self-censorship.

ANEM is expressing its full solidarity with Stojan Markovic and calls the competent institutions to invest additional efforts to have the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression apply to everyone and to have the courts interpret the provisions about human and minority rights with a view to improve the values of democratic society and in accordance with the applicable international standards and practice, in order for these values not to remain only a dead letter on paper.

ANEM President, Sasa Mirkovic