29 Sep 14 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features, Serbia
Serbian journalists last night gathered outside the studios of national broadcaster B92, in protest at the decision to cancel politics talk show Utisak Nedelje (Impressions of the Week).
B92 claims the popular show — on air since 1991 — has not been cancelled but postponed due to a breakdown in negotiations with its author and presenter Olja Beckovic, according to news site Balkan Insight. The channel says they had offered to continue broadcasting the show on its national frequency channel — its home since 2002 — until November, when it would be bumped to the cable channel B92 Info. But Beckovic says the show has been banned following political pressure.
“I absolutely never experienced such blackmail and pressure before,” she told website Vesti in an interview published on Friday. “And there’s something very interesting about that. People say this is a return to the 1990s. No it’s not, it’s worse than the 1990s.”
In March, the Progressive Party (SNS) convincingly won Serbia’s general election and its leader Aleksandar Vucic became the prime minister. With a chequered track record on press freedom, both as deputy prime minister in the previous government and as Slobodan Milosevic’s information minister, Index wondered at the time what impact his new role may have on Serbia’s media. Six months on, what is happening with Utisak Nedelje is just the latest addition to a worrying pattern.
It did not take long for claims of censorship to be levelled at the Vucic government. In May, Serbia and surrounding countries were hit by devastating floods. Authorities imposed a temporary state of emergency, which gave them the power to detain people for “inciting panic”. Meanwhile, online criticism of the government’s handling of the crisis was targeted. Critical articles and blogs were removed, and whole websites, including the independent news outlet Pescanik, were blocked and subjected to DDoS attacks. While it is unconfirmed who exactly was behind these incidents, they already then constituted a “worrying trend”, according to the Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE).
Index has tracked the media freedom situation in Serbia since the early days of the current government. There have been reports of a journalist being interrogated by police for sharing a Facebook post, as well as physical and verbal attacks — often with impunity. But indirect control of media, smear campaigns and other methods of covert “soft censorship” also pose a serious challenge to Serbian press freedom. “Milošević never muzzled the media this perfidiously. His methods were far less sophisticated and everything was out in the open,” said Beckovic. And it seems her colleagues agree that censorship is prevalent. Ninety per cent of journalists responding to a recent survey said censorship and self-censorship does exist in Serbian media, while 73% and 95%, respectively, said the media does not report objectively and critically.
The public dispute between authorities and the Balkan Investigative Journalism Network (Birn) is one example. The group reported that the government paid significantly more than partner Etihad Airways for a nearly equal stake in new company Air Serbia. Vucic denied the story, saying it was based on an unused draft version of the contract. Days later, pro-government newspaper Informer published an article accusing journalists from Birn and Serbia’s Centre for Investigative Journalism (Cins) of stalking and spying on Vucic. Birn has called this a “campaign to discredit” their work.
“I have the impression that the situation is getting worse,” Mehmet Koksal from the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) told Index. He cites recent reports of Serbian politicians allegedly faking academic qualifications. “In those articles you can easily measure the level of tolerance from the government to independent media owners,” he explains. He says some newspaper that pushed the story were accused in pro-government outlets of carrying out propaganda for foreign countries. “This is the kind of conspiracy theory that we used to see from different countries.” Pescanik was again brought down by DDoS attacks for reporting the story.
Recent amendments to the country’s media laws will see the state withdraw from nearly all media funding by July 2015. The move has been welcomed by many, but as think tank Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso points out, this alone will have limited impact: “Private tabloids have been for some time the main supporters of the government, and influence is exerted indirectly, mostly through the advertising market.”
Serbia has also adopted a new labour law which was heavily opposed by trade unions. Koksal claims that union leaders have faced media attacks and smear campaigns. If certain media groups or owners have an interest developing good relationships with the Serbian government, he explains, you can “easily understand why they are doing the dirty job” of attacking opposition. But finding out who exactly funds which outlet is not always easy, as bids to increase transparency of ownership has been met with resistance from private media.
After the elections, Index spoke to Lily Lynch, the founder and editor of the English-language online magazine The Balkanist, which used to be based in Belgrade. She recently decided to leave Serbia due to the pressure she has faced as an independent journalists.
“I was pessimistic about the potential for the media situation in Serbia to worsen when the new government, led by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, came to power in March. But I think the mask has slipped much faster than any of us expected,” she tells Index.
Lynch also believes international actors have a role to play in the worsening levels of press freedom in Serbia, explaining how the US embassy in Belgrade earlier this year told her to leave the country until after the election. “It seems the US embassy thought it was probably a better idea if I was gone because we were critical of the Vucic regime, which they supported pretty unambiguously.”
She also argues that international media bears some responsibility. “In the pre-election period, the English-language media was pretty uniform in its portrayal of Vucic as some kind of redemptive success story. There were headlines like ‘From Authoritarian Censor to EU Partner’, or ‘From Nationalist Hawk to Devout Europeanist’,” she says.
“Was it responsible for major, supposedly ‘objective’, well-respected publications to project such an image? I would say no, and it’s something I think we need to look at ourselves.”
Vucic has been widely lauded as a reformer, who has set Serbia firmly on the path to EU accession — the country’s main driver of reforms. In 2015, Serbia will also take over the chairmanship of the OSCE. During that organisation’s ongoing high-level human rights conference, the Serbian delegate said the OSCE region’s freedom of expression and media in will be high on their agenda as chairs. Many would argue they could start the work at home.
Correction 09:34, September 30: An earlier version of the article stated that Mehmet Koksal works for the International Federation of Journalists.
This article was published on Monday September 29 at indexoncensorship.org
Serbia: Protesters opposing Belgrade Pride Parade attack B92 offices
Serbia: Photographer injured by anti-pride parade protesters
Serbia: B92 TV station scrapped well-known political talk show
Serbia: Security officer interfered with journalist during political party rally
Serbia: Journalists from “Juzne vesti” labelled foreign mercenaries
21 Mar 14 | Europe and Central Asia, News and features
(Image: Theo Schneider/Demotix)
Serbia is in the process of forming a new government. Following the Progressive Party ‘s (SNS) landslide victory in Sunday’s elections — securing 48% of the votes and 156 of 250 parliamentary seats — one man in particular holds the keys to the country’s future. Leader Aleksandar Vucic, Deputy Prime Minister in the previous coalition, is dropping the prefix and taking the top spot this time around.
While at 44, he would be a relatively young leader, he has had plenty of experience in high politics. Indeed, back in the 90s, he served as Minister of Information under Slobodan Milosevic. Many people spend their twenties trying figure out what to do with their lives. Vucic, meanwhile, was busy introducing a notoriously hardhanded media law, among other things, introducing fines to punish journalists and banning foreign media. As he now prepares to take office, should Serbia’s press be worried?
On the one hand, Vucic has worked hard to shift his image from hardline nationalist, to pro-EU reformer, his focus firmly fixed on Serbia’s struggling economy. He has gone after some of the country’s biggest financial criminals in a high-profile anti-corruption campaign. He has pushed for normalisation in the strained relationship with Kosovo, to put EU accession on track. On election night, the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al Nahyan, could be found celebrating with Vucic at the SNS headquarters. The man who once said that 100 Muslims should be killed for every Serb, is securing loans in the billions from the UAE to help fund ambitious regeneration projects in Belgrade.
Yet, despite this apparent commitment to transparency, and despite claiming freedom of the media as one of his “five priorities” — his own personal regeneration, if you will — big words have not really translated into action when it comes to Serbian press freedom.
The country’s journalists have long been working under less than ideal conditions. From the direct, physical threats suffered under the Milosevic regime, to repressive legislation, free expression has been well and truly chilled. But the biggest challenge today is soft censorship, according to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN).
“Press freedom in Serbia is mostly endangered by soft censorship meaning that it is mostly endangered by discriminatory and un-transparent allocation of state funding towards media outlets. This money is usually used to reward those who are in favor of the government and to punish those who oppose it. As opposed to direct threats, soft censorship is much harder to detect,” BIRN’s Tanja Maksic told Index.
“In [the] last year and a half of the Vucic and [former Prime Minister] Dacic government, we haven’t witnessed much of the determination to stop this undemocratic practice,” she adds.
Indeed, evidence points to the Prime Minister to-be doing the exact opposite. A recent report analysing election content on TV showed that the Progressive Party, and Vucic specifically, were favoured in the, overall strikingly positive, coverage. And back in February, a video adding satirical subtitles to genuine footage showing Vucic rescuing a boy from a snowstorm, was taken down. The video, originally from public broadcaster RTS, was removed over copyright infringement claims, despite campaigners arguing it did not break copyright laws. Authorities are widely believed to have played a part in the removal. A number of websites that had published it were blocked or attacked from within the country, while individuals behind the sites saw their social media profiles hacked. The claims made in the subtitles — that the whole report was staged to paint Vucic in a favourable light ahead of the elections — might have cut too close to the bone.
Vucic’s alleged control over sections of the Serbian media is perhaps most evident in the case of former Economy Minister Sasa Radulovic. Following his resignation, not long before the eventual collapse of the previous government, he was, without explanation, dumped from a popular TV talk show. The last-minute replacement? Aleksandar Vucic. Radulovic soon tweeted that he couldn’t wait to tune in to the evening’s show “to figure out why I resigned”. He followed this up by publishing an explosive resignation letter, accusing the government, including the anti-corruption crusading deputy prime minister himself, of corruption. He added that he’d been subjected to a “media lynching” by tabloids friendly to the government, that self-censorship is rife in Serbian media and that “news is being smothered”. The letter was covered by state-funded news agency Tanjug, but the report was removed within minutes and only republished following complaints.
Lily Lynch is the co-founder and editor of Balkanist, an independent online magazine covering, as the name suggests, the Balkan region. They have first-hand experience of Serbia’s restrictive media environment, once having their power cut for three days after publishing government leaks. She says Vucic has been “disastrous” for Serbian media, and believes that with his newfound, unchecked power they will see “more censorship”.
“I think that self-censorship will likely get even worse than it already is, as compliance with the status quo is often the only way to keep a job in Serbia,” she explains to Index. “Independent media outlets like Pescanik will be allowed to work because their audience is small and marginal, and their existence actually benefits Vucic because he can cite them as evidence that there is media freedom in Serbia. Meanwhile, the media that the majority of the country reads or watches will continue to depict Vucic as the savior of the nation.”
This depiction seems to have made an impact beyond Serbia’s borders too. Vucic’s pro-EU stance, and especially his perceived pragmatism regarding Kosovo, has boosted his international profile. He’s been labelled “the man bringing Belgrade in from the cold”, and American ambassador Michael Kirby has even praised Serbia’s media freedom.
It is, however, also worth noting certain cracks in this image within Serbia. The turnout figures of 53.2% — following the downward trend of previous elections — would suggest the adulation among the population is not as widespread as on first glance. The Facebook group “I did not vote for Vucic”, set up on election day, with its some 2,400 likes and counting, might point to the same.
Tanja Maksic says the real test for the Vucic government will come with adoption of much needed laws prescribing stricter control of media funding from public budget. If these are passed and implemented it “will be a clear demonstration of a new political will to pass the reforms in media sector,” she adds.
Lynch is not optimistic. She says there is a real danger Serbia could go the way of Hungary, a country that under the leadership of Victor Orban has witnessed the state of media freedom nosedive. She is not the only one to make the link. A recent Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty asks if Serbia “is headed for Orbanization”?
“Vucic has used the media as mouthpieces to denounce opponents, smearing them and accusing them of crimes without evidence. I definitely think this will continue. Others say “everything is up to Vucic now, he has no one to excuses anymore” but he has attained this level of power and will not let it go so easily. Anything that goes wrong will be the fault of some minister or other, who will be sacked and humiliated in the press so that Vucic is not viewed as responsible in the eyes of the public,” Lynch says.
“Vucic’s arrests and “anti-crime crusade” has made many public persons, including journalists, very afraid.”
This article was posted on 21 March 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
28 Oct 13 | Magazine, News and features
Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Poland’s first post-Communist Prime Minister, died today. In 1995, he spoke to Index on Censorship magazine about his decision to resign as Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights in former Yugoslavia, in protest of the inaction of the international community in the face of the conflict
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In 1989 Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a founding member of Solidarity, was elected the first non-Communist premier of Poland. Two years later, after resigning his premiership, he became Special Rapporteur of the United Nation’s Commission on Human Rights in former Yugoslavia. In July this year, in his letter of resignation, he said, ‘One cannot speak about the protection of human rights with credibility when one is confronted with the lack of consistency and courage displayed by the international community and its leaders. Dawid Warsawski talked to him for Index
Following your resignation in the wake of the fall of Srebrenica, you have become a symbol of resistance for critics of the UN mission in Bosnia. Are you comfortable in this role?
I don’t know if it’s possible to feel comfortable as a symbol. The response to my resignation proved that it was a necessary protest. The world had come to accept war crimes as a fact of life. But there were those who found it difficult to understand why rhetoric about human rights and morality wasn’t being reflected in political action. There was a need for some kind of gesture on their behalf.
In an open letter published in La Stampa a few days after your resignation, the Croatian writer Slavenka Drakulic, though respecting your decision, accuses you if betraying the hopes of people in former Yugoslavia who wanted you to be their voice.
I saw this as a serious problem when I was weighing up the options. But I do intend to go on speaking out, and I believe that, for these people too, it was more important to protest than to pretend that nothing had happened. For me, Srebrenica was the last straw. Once again promises had been broken and values betrayed. It is hard to be the voice of hope when one is forced into a posture of complete helplessness.
What powers did the UN mandate give you?
I had the right to analyse and report on all abuses of human rights and humanitarian law. But the recommendations I made in connection with the war touched upon issues that came under the exclusive competence of the Security Council. That was the mandate’s weakness.
Only the Human Rights Commission, which appointed me to this post, was obliged to take account of my recommendations. Extraordinary meetings apart, the Commission meets barely once a year to make a survey of the human rights situation throughout the world. There is little time for detailed examination.
The Security Council drew on my reports, but had no obligation to take account of my recommendations. In the course of my three years at the UN, I was invited to a meeting of the Security Council just once, and allowed to make a brief address. My invitation, as Human Rights Commission rapporteur, drew protest from the representatives of China and Zimbabwe. Within the UN structure, the Human Rights Commission is subordinate to the Economic and Social Council – which is far less important than the Security Council. My invitation set a bureaucratic precedent and it must have stirred anxieties. A discussion on human rights in the former Yugoslavia today could mean a debate on China tomorrow.
Did you feel that the UN was giving you firm help and support?
I didn’t; yet people I met on the ground were convinced that the UN was fully behind me and that I could do a great deal within it. This wasn’t exactly the case and made my own position more difficult.
What sort of budget and personnel did you have at your disposal?
Compared to rapporteurs in other countries I managed to secure a considerable amount. I won the right to appoint personnel on the ground, though I didn’t have any influence on their selection. We have representation in Zagreb, Sarajevo, Skopje and most recently in Mostar. But we failed to gain representation in Belgrade because of the attitude taken by the Serbian authorities. My colleagues were able to intervene over some issues (in Croatia, for example). In other cases they were unable to do so because they weren’t permitted to go in by the Serbian side in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia itself and Montenegro.
What were the financial arrangements?
The appointment of ground personnel overstepped the normal UN budget. The costs were covered by additional funds from state sources, particularly the US government, and by private funds, especially the Soros Foundation. We didn’t know at the end of one year whether funding for the following year would be available.
How do you assess your co-operation with the Bosnian, Croat and Serb authorities on the ground?
Everyone expected me to report on crimes committed by the other sides and preferred me not to note their own human rights abuses. After two visits the Serb authorities began to register great dissatisfaction with my mission – probably because I wrote full and harsh reports about the position of Albanians in Kosovo.
In my dealings with the Bosnian Serbs there were serious problems from the start. During my first visit, when we looked at the explosive issue of the concentration camps, I went to Manjaca. There I had an extraordinary and unforgettable interview with the camp commandant. He addressed me with a mixture of flattery and threats, and the purpose of it all was to prevent me from seeing the prisoners. Later the Bosnian Serb authorities apologised. The fact that I had concluded that the Bosnian Serbs were chiefly responsible for carrying out ethnic cleansing policies must have played a part in this episode, as well as my view that their human rights abuses were the most glaring. The Croatian authorities were ‘generally co-operative’, as they say. But the military authorities did not, for example, put a stop to the expulsion of Serbian families from homes on military property, despite promises to the contrary.
The Bosnian authorities were co-operative, but at the end of my mission I discovered that in Tarcino there has for years been a camp maintained by the Bosnian authorities, with over one hundred prisoners held hostage by local people.
How useful was your own experience as a political prisoner in Communist Poland? I remember an incident in Zenica where prisoners were saying that when the commandant goes home, the guards set about ill-treating them. The commandant denied the allegations, to which you responded that you too had been a prisoner once and fully understood what it meant. His jaw dropped. I imagine he’d never met a former prisoner turned dignitary.
The experience was just as useful when I was formulating my criticisms of the London Conference. Watching its political dynamic I saw a failure to understand who we were dealing with.
For some, it was a political problem, faintly exotic and rather marginal on the world scale. They were working on it without the experience that, at times, there is nothing real about ‘realpolitik’. They showed a lack of readiness to tread the edge of the impossible in politics. In Eastern Europe we have learnt all about this, but it still doesn’t fit into the categories of Western European political thought – even despite the fall of Communism.
What were your relations with the various agencies of the UN?
There was a serious lack of co-ordination between the different agencies of the UN and others – such as the London International Conference on former Yugoslavia – of which the UN forms a significant part. I also had to get used to the fact that UN staff, especially the civilian staff of UNPROFOR were under no obligation to pass on documentation relating to human rights abuses. There was one occasion when vital information concerning a serious war crime (the mass graves at Ovcara near Vukovar) was not communicated to us. I discovered that UNPROFOR personnel had been aware of it, while I found out only at a later stage. Information as important as that should have been passed on.
In general I have the impression that UN structures are not geared to monitoring or counteracting human rights abuses. In my view the UNPROFOR mandate was essentially sick. It was assumed that it was possible to go into a war situation with a peacekeeping mandate. Moreover, the international community made a series of concessions to the Serbs; it was prepared to accept what they had done as a fait accompli. And the Serbs became increasingly less inclined to take account of the possibility that their actions might provoke a strong response. UNPROFOR came to be treated like a hostage, initially in a metaphorical sense and, later, literally. The UNPROFOR mandate was wholly inadequate in these conditions.
What preventive facilities does the UN have? It seems to act adequately In the wake of disasters, but apparently can’t do anything to prevent them.
I agree, but at present the UN has become a convenient whipping boy. Decisions are taken not by the UN but by its member states. The question is do we really want an organisation which would have greater powers? Personally, I was unable to accept the lack of will to action. The UN lacks a clear vision of itself as an organisation and the single- mindedness to realise it the one hand pledges were being made in the name of the UN and on the other the will wasn’t there to fulfil them.
Who lacks the will? Where does the blockage arise?
In my view the UN lacks a clear vision of itself as an organisation and the single-mindedness to realise it. Secondly, the states involved in decision taking have no common political will; there is a conflict of interests. It’s a problem which reaches beyond the Yugoslav conflict. What are the guidelines by which the world is to order itself following the collapse of the geo-political model drawn up at Yalta? The UN was created as an integral part of that model. Do we now want to strengthen and equip it with effective means of action? Or is it to be a political International Red Cross which, though perhaps necessary, cannot promise people any kind o f resolution?
What are your plans now?
I don’t propose to wash my hands of the former Yugoslavia . These three years have been very important to me personally. Elementary human solidarity is also a factor: it’s very hard for me to agree with the view that the Balkans are a traditionally violent region which should be left well alone. Moreover, I firmly believe that we have underestimated the consequences of this conflict and of Europe’s ineffectual response to it for the whole international order.
Dawid Warsawski is the pen name of Konstanty Gebert, a former under- ground activist and journalist involved in Jewish cultural life
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This article was originally published in the autumn 1995 edition of Index on Censorship magazine.
24 Oct 13 | Europe and Central Asia, Montenegro, News and features
Montenegro is first in line after Croatia to enter the EU, according to some European politicians and parliamentarians; a leader in the Balkan region. But the country’s press is under attack, with Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic leading the line in cracking down on the region’s media.
In the latest Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, Montenegro placed 113th out of 179 countries – a ranking that has deteriorated year on year. Slovenia, a neighbour and EU member, is ranked 35th, and Serbia and Croatia are also far ahead. Even Bosnia and Herzegovina, which by many other parameters unfortunately is behind all of the Balkans, rates well ahead of Montenegro at 68th.
This situation is easily explainable. Only in Montenegro has the rule not changed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. For 24 years the power has been held by the same man – Djukanovic. He is the only one from the generation of ex-Yugoslavian war leaders who is still active in politics. He perceives the media as the greatest threat to his absolute rule.
Over the past few years alone, the founder and editor of a daily newspaper has been killed and seven editors and journalists have been physically assaulted. A number of cars belonging to Vijesti, the independent daily newspaper I co-founded, have been set on fire.
Not only have none of these criminal acts been properly investigated, but the authorities and their institutions have done everything in their power to render the investigations meaningless and to ensure that real culprits are not touched. This has increased self-censorship among journalists; many of them are very concerned by the fact that those who commission the attacks seem untouchable, hidden at the very top the government and the mafia circles close to it.
On 1 September 2012, the fifteenth anniversary of the founding of Vijesti, a director, editor, journalist and photographer from the paper were all attacked. This was a warning to their colleagues not to see what they see and write about what is obvious.
Journalism should be a simple and responsible profession that protects the public interest and defends the society from abuses of the powerful and privileged. But in light of the state of media freedom in Montenegro, practicing journalism has been described by representatives from the Council of Europe as ‘a heroic feat’.
When physical assaults have not delivered the expected results, Djukanovic and his regime have switched to financial ones. He forbade the government, state institutions, municipalities and public companies to advertise in Vijesti. A number of private companies that are close to the prime minister, or whom he can intimidate through tax inspections, were “advised” to avoid us. This has caused millions of Euros worth of financial damage to the paper.
On the other hand, he has relentlessly poured state money into the low-circulation national newspaper Pobjeda, which would otherwise have gone bankrupt a long time ago. He has also launched a TV station with cheap programmes in order to compromise the sustainability of the independent TV station.
Napoleon once remarked: “Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.” Our newspaper does not consider anyone to be its enemy. However, the all-powerful politicians whose irresponsibility and corruption we report on, perceive us as such. To that we tell them the problem is not on our side – if you do not want to have bad things published on the front page, then don’t do bad things!
Europe has a role to play in this situation. We know that freedom of speech is one of the key conditions for progressing in the European integration, because without free media there is no democratic society. For years, the European administration has been seeking concrete results from Montenegro in the fight against organised crime and corruption. Prime Minister Djukanovic has developed a system that is tantamount to a political trade-off. He is completely cooperative and obedient to Brussels and Washington when it comes to regional issues, such as the recognition of Kosovo, support of the Bosnian state as envisioned in the Dayton Agreement and cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
In exchange, the US and EU turn a blind eye while the government harangues civil society and independent media.
It is time for an end to this cynical policy. European officials, whether they are in Brussels or Paris, Berlin and London, should start taking stock of the real situation and status of democracy and human rights in Montenegro. Otherwise, Djukanovic will succeed in a what should be an impossible mission – obtaining full EU membership for Montenegro, while simultaneously extinguishing independent media in this new state.
This article was originally posted on 24 Oct 2013 at indexoncensorship.org
