ANEM alarm: Employees of the Danas editorial office received death threats in comments on the website.

The comment signed as "May God Almighty erase your seed" reads:

“God grant that all employees at Danas be severely affected and that their seed be erased, so they can watch as they are unable to help their sick families, as they are consumed from within and destroyed. In Christ's name, we pray to the Lord God that Danas and all employed terrorists be punished for all their evil deeds in the worst possible way and that they pay the highest price for all the crimes against Serbia and the Serbian people! DEATH TO TRAITORS! GET LOST, CORRUPT SCUM, MAY A DOG F**K YOUR MOTHER IN THE MOUTH AND TURKS STAKE YOUR CHILDREN! For you are corrupt scum and terrorist ustashe, GET LOST!”

ANEM assesses this message as a direct threat and a risk to the safety of journalists and other media workers and calls on the relevant authorities to urgently investigate the case, identify, and sanction the perpetrator who sends disturbing and horrifying death threats to journalists.

We remind you that this is not the first time journalists at this media have received threats. Recently, journalist Vojin Radovanović from Danas received a threatening message stating that he had been “marked by the black hand,” identical in content and from the same account that previously sent threats to Smiljana Milinkov, head of the Department of Journalism at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, as well as to at least two other professors, one journalist, and one political activist.

Additionally, threats have reached this newsroom and the editorial teams of N1, Nova, and Insajder on social media, warning them to "prepare" so that a "Charlie Hebdo" incident does not happen again.

“We remind you that the brutal threat received by the editorial team of the daily newspaper Danas, at the end of 2022, is still unresolved, which is why they were under police protection for several weeks. The message that arrived through an anonymizing service detailed how this editorial team and its journalists would be liquidated. Despite the significant efforts of investigative authorities and international legal assistance, the perpetrator has not yet been identified or punished. We are witnessing that the increase in impunity and the number of unresolved cases directly affects the sharp rise in threats and attacks on journalists,” emphasized Veran Matić, President of the ANEM Management Board.

ANEM reminds that the safety of journalists in Serbia has been severely compromised over the past year and that the data and daily cases are alarming and unprecedented in recent Serbian history, thus we appeal once again to the relevant institutions to ensure the safety of media representatives and allow them to perform their work without obstruction.

Furthermore, we call on high-ranking state officials and tabloids to stop targeting and campaigning against critical media and their journalists, as this further incites aggression.

Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM)

The project "System for the Prevention of Violence and Protection of Journalists" is carried out by ANEM in partnership with Insajder TV and the Center for the Development of Local Media, with the support of the European Union and the Balkan Democracy Fund.