ANEM: Institutions in Kosovo must allow media in the Serbian language to report on local elections.
The Central Election Commission of Kosovo (CEC) has announced that accreditation for monitoring the local elections in Kosovo, which will be held on October 12, has been granted to 29 local and 13 international media outlets, with a total of 573 representatives. There are no media outlets reporting in Serbian on the list of accredited media.
The CEC website even lists the media outlets that have been denied accreditation, including TV Most, RTV Puls, Prva TV, Radio Kim, RTS, Tanjug, GračanicaOnline, Kurir, Insajder, Nina Media clipping, RTV Vojvodina, Radio KiM, Nova.rs, Media Center Čaglavica, Danas, and others.
According to testimonies from journalists, they filled out accreditation requests by October 7, received confirmations that their documentation was valid, only to realize three days before the elections that they would not be able to perform their duties with full media access to polling places and election-related events.
None of the media outlets received an explanation as to why they were denied.
The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) strongly protests this decision by the relevant institutions in Kosovo, which implies a priori censorship and selectively controlled access to information of public importance for media based in Belgrade and those reporting in Serbian on Kosovo.
Considering that a large number of voters in these elections are of Serbian nationality and that there is a language barrier, this approach denies a segment of the population the fundamental human right to be informed in their spoken language about the electoral process and voting results.
This decision by the CEC represents clear discrimination against media outlets, an attack on democracy with dangerous provisional and highly politically motivated objectives.
Therefore, we call on the relevant institutions in Kosovo to reconsider their decision and allow Serbian-language media to report freely and objectively on local elections in Kosovo, thereby professionally fulfilling their role.
ANEM assesses that such decisions do not contribute to reducing tensions and the negative atmosphere among the citizens living in Kosovo.
Media freedom and the right to inform citizens are fundamental pillars of democracy in a civilized world. Discrimination against journalists based on nationality, or any other basis, is unacceptable.
Veran Matić, President of the Board of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM)
