SERBIA'S MEDIA SCENE IN JANUARY 2024

Freedom of expression

According to the database of pressures and attacks on journalists maintained by the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS), a total of 131 cases of threats to journalists were recorded in 2023, which is nine fewer than in 2022, when 140 were recorded. However, the data show that the negative trend has not stopped since the number of pressures in 2023 has doubled compared to 2022 - 52 cases. The UNS database recorded 32 threats, 25 cases of disabling work, 16 physical attacks, 5 attacks on property and one case of breach of privacy. In December, during the protests held in Belgrade, there were three physical attacks and two attacks on property, and two of the three physical attacks were committed by police officers. The American organization Human Rights Watch published its annual report on human rights around the world, and in the part of the report related to media freedom in Serbia, it was stated that the Permanent Group for the Safety of Journalists registered 42 cases of threats to journalists in the first half of the year, and that the Independent Association of journalists (NUNS) recorded three attacks by the end of March. The report for the month of January deals in more detail with the cases of Ivana Milosavljević, CINS journalist, the case of attack and discrimination of the N1 newsroom, the case of Vanja Đurić, N1 journalist, and Željko Veljković, Nova S journalist, the case of Nenad Kulačin and Marko Vidojković, authors and hosts of the podcast "Good, Bad, Evil'', the case of Nebojša Todorović, Nova.rs journalist, the case of Ivana Jovanović, a Bujanovačke journalist, the case of Srđan Nonić, editor-in-chief of the Niška initiative portal, as well as the case of OK radio.

Monitoring of the process of adoption of new laws

Given that the media laws were adopted at the end of 2023, the process of summarizing their application and monitoring it in practice is still ongoing. The Law on Public Information and Media and the Law on Electronic Media began to be implemented on November 4, 2023. The article of the law that refers to the distribution of public money for project co-financing was amended and it was additionally determined that it applies to both media that do not accept and those that do accept the jurisdiction of the Press Council, provided that they do not violate professional standards. In January, a cross-section of disputed points from the new laws attracted the most attention, namely the permission for the state Telekom Serbia to establish and buy media, the lack of REM's obligation to act on citizens' complaints and the insufficient resolution of the problem of abuse of state institutions in election campaigns. Amendments to the Law on Public Media Services are planned for next year, after the formation of the new Government. The obligations of media service providers to adapt the program to persons with disabilities were also analyzed. According to the new Law on Electronic Media, media service providers are obliged to report to REM by September 1 at the latest whether and to what extent they broadcast a program accessible to people with hearing and vision impairments and whether translations into Serbian sign language, open and closed subtitles and audio descriptions are available. The last such report of the Regulator dates from 2019, but only in the new report will it be shown to what extent the legal provisions are respected. The data on the monitoring of the election campaign on the most watched national televisions, which, although they should have been published by REM, were published by the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS), while the president of the Council of REM denied their validity and pointed out that the report on monitoring is still not finished. An important moment in January was the holding of a meeting between the Minister of Information and Telecommunications in the Government of the Republic of Serbia, Mihailo Jovanović, and members of the Working Group for the Development of an Action Plan for the Implementation of a Media Strategy. The topic of the meeting was the continuation of work on the development of an Action Plan for the Implementation of the Strategy for the Development of the Public Information System in the Republic of Serbia for the period from 2020 to 2025, in the period from 2024 to 2025, as well as an agreement on further steps in order to fully implement the Media Strategy.

Implementation of the existing regulations

Numerous novelties prescribed by the new Rulebook on the co-financing of projects for the realization of public interest in the field of public information, which entered into force in January, were analyzed. As tenders for project co-financing of media content production, according to the new law, must be announced by March 1 of the current year, two cities have already fulfilled this obligation - Leskovac and Sremska Mitrovica. The new Rulebook foresees the obligation of the professional service of the body that announced the competition to obtain from the state authorities, the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media and the Press Council data on the measures imposed on the media for violating professional and ethical standards, and a misdemeanor penalty is provided for non-compliance with this provision. Also, the report deals in more detail with the controversial situation in which there were broadcasters whose license was valid until December 17, 2023, and who still did not receive a Decision on the granting of a broadcasting license from REM, even though the competition was announced on the 2nd of June 2023, and interviews with those who meet the conditions of the competition, i.e. whose applications were complete and submitted within the stipulated period, were held in December.

SLAPP lawsuits directed at journalists and the media

The European CASE coalition (Coalition against SLAPPs in Europe) set the goal of discovering the SLAPP politicians and SLAPP states that initiated the most lawsuits against the media, and Dijana Hrkalović was among the proposed ones. Hrkalović filed 11 lawsuits against journalists from various media, including the editor of the investigative portal KRIK. The case was analyzed in which KRIK journalists Vesna Radojević and Dragana Pećo were acquitted in the first-instance proceedings based on a private criminal complaint filed by Nikola Petrović, close friend and best man of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, and the former director of "Electric Grid of Serbia". During this procedure, the representatives of the Reporters without Borders organization provided support to the journalists. They called on Serbia to implement measures against SLAPP procedures recommended by the European Union. According to the point of view of the court of first instance, Petrović's allegations were not founded since his personal information was not published in the text, so the journalists were acquitted. It is emphasized that this is not the first time that Petrović has filed lawsuits against the journalists of the KRIK newsroom for allegedly committing the criminal offense Unauthorized collection of personal data. Journalist Dragana Pećo has already been legally acquitted once of the charge that she collected Petrović's personal data without authorization, and litigation is ongoing against the journalist and editor-in-chief of the KRIK portal, based on the lawsuit filed by Nikola Petrović.

Media monitoring was published with the financial support of the European Union and the OSCE Mission to Serbia. The Association of Independent Electronic Media is solely responsible for its content, and that content in no way expresses the official views of the European Union and the OSCE Mission to Serbia.

This Monitoring Report was prepared by ANEM's expert monitoring team from the law office "Živković & Samardžić" in cooperation with ANEM, and the entire report can be found at this link.