25. 09. 2002

No privileges for media veterans in Serbia

The Serbian prime minister has denied claims that the Serbian electronic media now find themselves in a situation which in some aspects is worse than that under the former regime."If someone was highly courageous during the Milosevic era, we'll give them a medal, but not a television channel"

WASHINGTON, November 6 (SENSE) - In his address at an Institute for Peace panel discussion, Prime Minister Djindjic described the issue of why the position of some independent media in Serbia today was worse than under the Milosevic regime as "irritating". Djindjic noted that one of the first steps taken by his government was to repeal the notorious Public Information Act and return money paid in fines by independent newspapers. He went on to say that independent journalists in Serbia had been assassinated, persecuted and exposed to all sorts of pressure.

"As far as the electronic media are concerned we inherited real chaos with more than seven hundred private radio and television stations. The question was what to do with it. Should we have waited for new legislation regulating frequency allocations which would halve the number of broadcasters and, in the meantime, ask the independent journalists association to draft a new Public Broadcasting Act? Work on the new media legislation is currently under way which means that no broadcast licences previously granted would be revoked, but nor would any new licenses be issued," said Djindjic. He added that about two per cent of the pro-Milosevic media were still on the air while the remaining 98 per cent were under the control of people who supported the democratic forces in Serbia.

In reply to the objections of B92 and ANEM about the moratorium on granting new frequencies, the Serbian prime minister replied as follows:

"Some people want privileges. They don't want new legislation, they want a licence in order to become a national television channel, although at this point they have a television channel without a licence," said the prime minister. Thus their broadcasting operations are illegal. However we accept this because all the other independent electronic media are operating in the same way in Serbia. Some independent journalists have voiced their criticisms loud and clear but we, as the government, are unable to do anything in either a positive or a negative sense for the journalists. We have no legal basis for putting pressure on the independent media or, for that matter, any other media in Serbia. We are not financing them, nor do we a have a law in place under which we can take any action against the media. The only thing we can actually do is to not grant privileges to some media. Some of them are our friends but we now have a new system in Serbia which should grant everyone equal access to national resources. If someone was highly courageous during the Milosevic era, we'll give them a medal, but not a television channel. Channels will be granted to broadcasters through a public competition for frequency allocation and everyone will compete on the same terms as the others. I'm sorry, but this is the mainstay of democracy and the market economy."