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06. 05. 2014

MONTENEGRIN "FOURTH ESTATE" TARGETED BY BULLIES

06. 05. 2014 (NUNS, by R. Vukićević) Podgorica - There is no excuse for intimidation, warned the U.S. Ambassador to Podgorica Sue K. Brown on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day.

Some media workers and journalists responded to the call of the Media Trade Union by participating in the traditional symbolic action "Five Minutes of Thunderous Silence" on May 3, the World Press Freedom Day.

"In between two Press Freedom Days new physical and verbal attacks against media and journalists took place in Montenegro.

Members of the media community were insulted in a most primitive way, and their families were not spared. Explosive devices were placed, private property and property of media organizations was destroyed, and our colleagues were brutally beaten. At the same time, there was a lack of decisive action by state authorities to identify and prosecute the perpetrators and masterminds of these crimes," the Media Trade Union said in a statement on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day.

In Montenegro attacks against journalists and their property have been present since 1997. During 1998 police seized Belgrade print media distributed and sold in Montenegro. Some attacks against members of the "fourth estate" have not been resolved, nor the masterminds behind the 2002 murder of Duško Jovanović, editor-in-chief of the Podgorica daily "Dan."

U.S. Ambassador to Podgorica Sue K. Brown, on the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day, wrote in an article published yesterday in Podgorica daily "Vijesti": "There is no excuse for violence and intimidation. It is absolutely unacceptable. Any attempt to insinuate that journalists or civil society have provoked attacks by their behavior or that they have got what they deserved is itself an attack on a free and democratic society. "

Nothing can justify the brutal beating of a woman, the burning of a journalist's car, or a bomb intended to harm innocent people at their workplace, stressed the U.S. Ambassador to Podgorica.