EFJ: Minister Selaković calls for the lynching of journalist Dinko Gruhonjić.
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) has strongly condemned the dangerous statements made by Serbia's Minister of Culture, Nikola Selaković, against journalist and university professor Dinko Gruhonjić, describing them as a call for lynching.
“Journalist Dinko Gruhonjić has been the target of discrediting attacks by state officials for years, regardless of his compromised safety,” stated the EFJ in a press release.
Selaković made a series of insults against Gruhonjić yesterday in the Serbian Assembly.
The Independent Association of Journalists of Vojvodina (NDNV) strongly condemned his “series of scandalous, dangerous, and unacceptable statements.”
“The insinuation by Minister Selaković that ‘Gruhonjić was created for something bad to happen to him,’ followed by a series of brutal and unfounded accusations, is a conscious endangerment of safety and a call for the lynching of Dinko Gruhonjić,” stated NDNV in the press release.
They added that Selaković's “shameless and unfounded” accusations continue a “systematic campaign of discrediting and dehumanizing” that Gruhonjić has been subjected to for years by the highest representatives of the republican authorities.
“When a high-ranking state official continuously designates a journalist as a legitimate target, he actively contributes to creating an atmosphere in which threats and attacks are not only possible but also encouraged. When this is done by a minister in the Government of Serbia, it is not the stance of a disgruntled individual, but a message from the regime of Aleksandar Vučić,” the statement reads.
NDNV warned that such a pattern – public defamation, fabricating accusations, and marking a target – has preceded numerous attacks on journalists in Serbia.
Source: Beta
