ANEM suspends its membership in the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists.

Due to the inaction of relevant institutions in the public interest, yesterday numerous civil society organizations, including journalistic and media associations, announced that they are suspending cooperation with the legislative and executive authorities in Serbia, specifically “any membership—both formal and informal—in working groups of the Government and its ministries, as well as all other permanent and ad hoc working groups, councils, and similar instruments of state bodies.” Among those listed is the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, established nearly 10 years ago by an agreement between the Ministry of the Interior, the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office, and seven media and journalism associations.

The reason for this decision by ANEM lies in the fact that during 2024, a decrease in efficiency was recorded in the prosecution of attacks on journalists, and all relevant institutions share the responsibility for this, particularly the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia.

During 2024, public prosecutors formed 62 cases related to the safety of journalists. It is particularly concerning that in as many as 34 cases, the police did not respond to requests from the prosecution to collect and provide information necessary for further action on prosecuting those responsible. In five cases, the prosecutors reminded the police several times of the submitted requests, but received no response. Continuous appeals have been made, during regular meetings of the SRG, from the journalistic and media associations participating in the work of this body.

Unfortunately, one of the consequences of this inaction is that the prosecution has been unable to adequately prosecute those responsible for certain attacks on journalists over an extended period, typically those that attracted the most public attention. This primarily concerns the unacceptable ignoring of obvious and easily provable attacks on Vuk Cvijić and Dinko Gruhonjić. Although in previous years it has occurred that the police failed to provide requested information (14 instances were recorded in 2023), data from this year indicate a dramatic situation that can only be understood as a conscious inefficiency of the institutions.

Additionally, public prosecutors, in 14 out of 17 formally resolved cases, decided to dismiss criminal charges or determined there was no basis for initiating criminal proceedings. An additional challenge is that out of the 62 cases in 2024, only one resulted in a conviction. This also represents a significant drop in efficiency, considering that 12 convictions were issued in 2023. Moreover, the courts allowed in two cases that suspects of threats against journalists be granted house arrest with electronic monitoring, and in both instances, those individuals escaped and continue to pose a threat to endangered journalists.

Considering that the safety of journalists is one of the highest values of any democratic society and that journalists across the country constantly face serious challenges and security risks, ANEM will continue with all planned and ongoing activities in a somewhat different format.

The SRG is one of the few processes that has yielded results, through which representatives of the media community have seen concrete progress in creating a more favorable environment for journalists, as emphasized in recent years in reports from European institutions. ANEM believes that a solution will soon be found that will enable the continuation of the joint struggle for fundamental democratic values and principles, such as media freedom, freedom of expression, and the safety of journalists and other media workers.

Association of Independent Electronic Media