24. 07. 2008

JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION OF SERBIA DEMANDS POLICE LED INVESTIGATION

Belgrade, July 24, 2008 (Source: Beta and Press-Online) – Nino Brajovic, President of the Journalists' Association of Serbia (Udruženje novinara Srbije, UNS), has assessed today that the assault against media representatives in the protests against the arrest of the Hague indictee, Radovan Karadzic, had called for a serious and detailed police investigation.

"This incident calls for a serious and in-depth investigation by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ivica Dacic, since everything that happened took place in the immediate vicinity of the Turkish Embassy that has been guarded by a police cordon all the time since Kosovo declared its independence," Brajović told the Beta News Agency.

In the today protest organized by the nationalists' organizations Boško Branković, a B92 cameraman, was beaten. The participants of the protest attacked him and destroyed his camera when they saw him filming protestors who were breaking a camera of the FoNet News Agency photographer.
UNS has issued a public statement today, in which they demanded that the perpetrators of this violent deed be arrested as soon as possible and punished adequately for what they did.

UNS would also like to remind that they have recently sent in a written request to the Interior Minister Ivica Dacic, in which they asked him that police officers protected media representatives in a better way, after which the Minister publicly invited the members of Ministry of Interior forces to protect reporters on duty.

Brajović said that he had film footage showing his attackers, and reminded that all the Embassies had safety system cameras that had "probably filmed the incident".

Representatives of nationalistic organizations and of the Serbian Radical Party stage their protests for the past three days now in the Republic Square and Belgrade streets due to the arrest of the former Bosnian Serbs leader.