Unpatriotic behaviour. Sedition. Being in the pay of shadowy external forces. Faking a neo-Nazi event. These are just a few of the charges that have recently been levelled against independent journalists by pro-government media outlets in several central and eastern European countries.
In Montenegro – NATO member country and EU candidate – attacks against the press are numerous and a journalist may be imprisoned for his investigative work.
Since 2004, over 700 journalists have been killed for their reporting. Nine out of 10 of these cases go unpunished.
Independent journalist Jovo Martinovic’s arrest with 13 other individuals during a joint Croatian and Montenegrin police operation on 22 October 2015 began an ongoing ordeal
In the past two months three threats to media freedom involving the mayor of Kolasin, a town in Montenegro, have been reported to Mapping Media Freedom.
Smear campaigns mean more journalists are exiting the profession, leaving a vacuum to be filled by those who work for lower pay and to lower standards
Mapping Media Freedom correspondent Ilcho Cvetanoski reports on journalist safety in the Balkans
Seven years after the brutal attack that nearly took the life of journalist Tufik Softic, Montenegrin police detained two men suspected of involvement of his attempted murder. For media unions and observers, the detentions were long overdue, but emblematic of the atmosphere of impunity in Montenegro.
Montenegro’s EU membership negotiations progress against a backdrop of ever regressing media freedom, writes Zeljko Ivanovic