SERBIA'S MEDIA SCENE IN MAY 2023
Monitoring of the media scene is carried out with the aim of continuous monitoring of events and processes that affect the state of media freedom in the Republic of Serbia. The authors of the monitoring deal with: freedom of expression; monitoring the implementation of existing regulations; by adopting new regulations, but also by amending and supplementing the current ones, both from the field of media, and from other areas that directly or indirectly affect the freedom of the media; as well as by analyzing SLAPP lawsuits (strategic lawsuits against public participation) directed against journalists and media.
Freedom of expression
The data of the Public Prosecutor's Office show that as of May of this year, 34 cases related to persons who perform tasks of public importance in the field of information were filed in public prosecutor's offices, and the first-instance or final decision was made in 9 cases, which represents 26.47%. The report of Reporters Without Borders, an international organization that measures the index of media freedom in the world every year, was analyzed. in more detail folowing cases were analyized in Monitoring for the month of May: the case of RTS and Prva journalists, the case of Milan Šupica, journalist of the Pančevac weekly, the case of the editorial office of Danas and Nova S and N1 television, the case of Nikola Krstić, a freelance journalist, as well as the case of Marko Vidojković and Nenad Kulačin, journalists. and the author of the "Good, Bad, Evil" podcast. The case of Željko Matorčević, editor-in-chief of the Žig Info portal, the case of Srđan Nonić, civic activist and editor-in-chief of the Niška initiative portal, and the case of OK Radio from Vranje were also singled out.
Adoption of new regulations and changes to current ones
The Ministry of Information and Telecommunications received the comments and proposals of the media associations regarding the presented working version of the Draft Law on Electronic Media. The Coalition for Media Freedom, which has written about in the Report, indicated that the revision of this law must be subject to consultation with representatives of media and journalist associations, since the Media Strategy for the period from 2020 to 2025, in the development of which they participated, formulated guidelines for drafting of this law. Since the aforementioned strategy was applied selectively, it was pointed out that journalistic associations cannot support the strengthening of the measures available to REM if the legal mechanisms of REM's independence are not determined and legal solutions for strengthening responsibility are not proposed. There were no rules regarding political advertising, especially with regard to the problems that arise during the election campaign. More deficient solutions were addressed, and it is encouraging that solutions were proposed which would be adequate and which would achieve compliance with the Media Strategy, as well as the implementation of the Directive on Audiovisual Media Services from 2018, for which there is hope that the Ministry will consider them and then refer to the upcoming public discussion.
SLAPP lawsuits directed at journalists and media
International organizations and organizations for freedom of the press, listed in this Report, signed a statement in which they provide support to KRIK journalists, against whom 12 lawsuits were filed in the last two years. It is emphasized that the judgment of the High Court in Belgrade, which condemned KRIK, is particularly alarming because of the text in which it named all those who filed a lawsuit against the editorial office. In the report, this decision is analyzed in detail, as well as the broader consequences that arise from it, the most important of which is actually the denial of the existence of SLAPP lawsuits, which are otherwise frequent in our country. An analysis was made of two judgments of the Appellate Court in Belgrade, where an encouraging decision was made in the proceedings based on the lawsuit of Bratislava Gašić. In addition to the above, there is also the lawsuit filed by Nikola Petrović, close friend of the President of the Republic of Serbia and the former director of "Electricity of Serbia".
This publication was published with the financial assistance of the European Union. The Association of Independent Electronic Media is solely responsible for the content of this publication, and this content in no way expresses the official views of the European Union.
Publicly available data, data obtained from journalists, editors and other media workers, journalist associations and media associations, as well as state and non-state bodies are used for monitoring.
The monitoring report was prepared by ANEM's expert monitoring team from the "Živković & Samardžić" law office, and the entire report can be found at this link.
