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<nettime> ANEM BI-WEEKLY REPORT: December 23, 2000 - January 5, 2001 |
ANEM WEEKLY REPORT ON MEDIA REPRESSION IN SERBIA DECEMBER 30, 2000 - JANUARY 5, 2001 PUBLIC INFORMATION ACT DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL BELGRADE, December 30, 2000 - The key articles of the notorious Serbian Public Information Act widely used to control the media were pronounced unconstitutional today. The Federal Constitutional Court declared virtually all the decrees that did not relate directly to the basic principles of freedom of information - derived from the Yugoslav constitution itself - null and void today. The annulled decrees include those relating to the system of public media registration, publishing restrictions, and the hefty fines imposed. During the lifespan of the Act, 67 media bodies were fined a total of around 2.5 million DM. (FoNet) ANEM AD SCOOPS PUBLICITY PRIZE BELGRADE, December 30, 2000 - An Association of Independent Electronic Media TV advert has won a Belgrade agency an award at Europe's biggest publicity festival. The Focus FCB agency won the Epica prize for its "Birdy - free media" TV clip. It is the fourth time it has won a prize, and the third time for work relating to the subject of free media. It has also won a string of awards for its "B92 Free Press made in Serbia" placards. More information can be found at the festival's website www.epica-awards.com OTPOR WEBSITE STRUCK BY HACKER BELGRADE, December 30, 2000 - A hacker managed to disable administrators' access to the websites of both the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy and resistance movement Otpor on Monday. Officials from both organisations have launched a full-scale investigation into the attack, together with their German-based provider BG DREAM. A spokesman for the company said this was the first time somebody had hacked into Otpor's site. REFERENDUM MEDIA GUIDELINES UNDER CONSTRUCTION PODGORICA, January 3 2001 - The Social Democratic Party leader and member of the Montenegrin working group for the referendum said that guidelines for the media coverage of the referendum campaign would be finished by the end of January. Miodrag Ilickovic said that journalists' participation in preparing the guidlines was absolutely indispensable. The working group has already offered parliament speaker Svetozar Marovic its draft bill concerning the legal infrastructure for the referendum. It has yet to hand him the media guidelines. The working group consists of two representatives each from the Democratic Socialist Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Alliance of Montenegro, plus one from the Democratic Union of Albanians. The People's Party and the Socialist People's Party are not taking part in the working group. (FoNet) TANJUG THREATENS WARNING STRIKE BELGRADE, January 3, 2001 - Employees of the TANJUG news agency announced that they will hold a warning strike today or tomorrow unless the Yugoslav government listens to their requests for pay rises and the appointment of a permanent management board. It is now three months since the appointment of the temporary management board, Nezavisnost union official Dragoslav Vasic said. He warned that the union might order a general strike if its demands were not met. He added that the company needed ten times more money than the federal budget provided. PLAYWRIGHT SUED FOR HARRASSMENT BELGRADE, January 4, 2001 - The Helsinki Human Rights Committee filed charges today against a famous playwright for allegedly harrassing a publicist over an article she had written last month. Ljiljana Djurdjic criticised Dusan Kovacevic in an article examining the role of the intelligentsia entitled "The Fear from the Hill", published in daily Danas on December 12. Kovacevic is famous as the author of the script for Underground, filmed by director Emir Kusturica. In a statement issued today, the HHRC said it was "concerned" about the case, which Kovacevic's lawyer has said will be settled in court, "especially since it comes from those who constantly emphasise to the media their loyalty to democracy and condemn the old ways". (FoNet) BALKAN MEDIA POLITICISED, SAYS DUVE FRANKFURT, January 4, 2001 - Freedom of media is not the main issue in the Balkan region, OSCE media representative Freimut Duve said today, emphasising that the main problem was rather the overwhelming politicisation of local media. "The problematic use of media is in the spreading of conflicts among entities. Many people's political relevance depends on those conflicts and they are afraid that, when conflict ceases, they will have no power," he said in an interview with the Frankfurter Rundschau.According to Duve, there is a new generation of journalists in Zagreb and Belgrade who display a welcome understanding of what the profession is all about. "Had young people been unable to get information on the Internet, there would not have been a plebiscite on Slobodan Milosevic's departure from the political scene," Duve said. As a special media contribution to Milosevic's departure, he mentioned Radio B292's transition to the Internet after being forced off the air. "When the Milosevic authorities closed down Radio B92, the opposition managed to switch this radio's program to the Internet, and the people were thus able to use the information from this station," Duve said. TANJUG POSTPONES STRIKE BELGRADE, January 4, 2001 - Employees in the state-owned Tanjug news agency did not go on strike as they had previously announced that they would yesterday. According to Radio B92, Nezavisnost Union representatives agreed to hold a meeting with Yugoslav government representatives today instead of going on strike as a warning measure. The strike threat was motivated by employees' discontent with the Yugoslav parliament decision to earmark 30 million dinars from the federal budget for the company, and to limit the average salary to 2,200 dinars. Tanjug editor and senior Union official Dusan Vasic said Tanjug employees gave up the strike because the government said it would "meet the employees' requests" and promised to hold a meeting with them today. Yugoslav Information minister Slobodan Orlic and Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Zizic are expected to attend the meeting today. "We are trying to find the best solution, since the Nezavisnost Union members concluded that we did not have that many reasons to criticise the new authorities, which we all had voted for, that the inheritance from the former authorities was really huge and heavy and that we should reach an agreement, because there is no reason to shut the agency," Vasic added. The company temporary management, as well as all unions' representatives will also attend the meeting. A director and an executive board should be appointed at the meeting. The agency has not had a legally elected management since the previous director and editor-in-chief, Dusan Djordjevic's death three months ago. INDEPENDENT JOURNALISTS DEMAND ACTION IN SUBOTICA SUBOTICA, January 4, 2001 - Mayor of Subotica Jozsef Kasza today welcomed the request of the Subotica-based Independent Journalists Association for an investigation into the work of the city's media. The Association has also demanded that journalists who breached their professional code should be refused work. In particular, the Association has demanded action against several journalists who worked for TV Channel Super, loyal to the former regime until October 5. The Association also called on the municipal parliament to stop financing weekly paper Dani. HCHR DELIVERS REPORT ON MEDIA OWNERSHIP BELGRADE, January 5, 2001 - The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights yesterday presented its report on the former regime's opposition to the ownership status of several media houses, including B92. The committee president, Sonja Biserko, said that the regime had stood in the way of the privatisation of the media as it wanted to exercise complete control. The report looked at the experiences of Borba, Vecernje Novisti, Politika and Studio B as well as Radio Television B92. The former High Commercial Court judge, attorney Jelisaveta Vasilic, said the ownership status of the media houses could not be settled as long as the state was interfering in their work and strangling their autonomy and independence. She said that Borba had been a public company until 1997, when the federal government issued a decree to turn it into a Federal Public Company, i.e. a state-owned company. A similar measure had been implemented regarding Studio B. She said the commercial court in Belgrade had been doing the work of the executive. She added that ownership status could be changed only by law, and not by decree. ANEM attorney Nebojsa Samardzic said that certain media should be privatised and others should remain the property of the state and become public information services, independent of the executive power. He said regulations that would comply with European standards should be passed, which meant independent managing and regulative bodies. The members of such bodies should have a longer period of office than MPs. [FoNet] YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT DOUBLES TANJUG SALARIES BELGRADE, January 5, 2001 - The Yugoslav government today pledged financial aid to increase TANJUG news agency employees' salaries and avert the threatened strike. After the meeting with agency management, the Yugoslav information minister Slobodan Orlic told media the government would balance the budget and provide financial support for the agency. He said that salaries would be doubled. He also supported the workers' request for the appointment of a new management. Orlic said a working group would be formed to investigate the company thoroughly. TANJUG WORKERS LIKELY TO REJECT GOVERNMENT OFFER BELGRADE, January 5, 2001 - Independent Union official and TANJUG editor Dragoslav Vasic said his colleagues would probably not be satisfied with the agreement with the federal government representatives. He said TNAJUG employees would decide either today or Monday whether they would carry out their plans for a one-hour warning strike. After the meeting with Yugoslav Information Minister Slobodan Orlic and the Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Zizic, he said the government did not back those employees who had demanded a minimum salary of 3,000 dinars a month. He said the company needed 10 million dinars a month in order to stand on its own feet and compete with others. (Srna) KUSTURICA FILM CUT FOR TV BROADCAST BELGRADE, January 5,2001 - Emir Kusturica's film Underground was broadcast twice over New Year by Radio Televesion of Serbia but with a cut of ten minutes. It is not yet known whether the film producer and distributor Komuna Company or RTS was responsible for the cut, which included one of the most popular scenes. ------- Previous report: ANEM WEEKLY REPORT ON MEDIA REPRESSION IN SERBIA DECEMBER 23 - DECEMBER 29, 2000 MEDIA SHOWS BAD FAITH, SAYS COMMITTEE BELGRADE, December 23, 2000 - The media keeps "breaking the election blackout unscrupulously" and none of the media has accepted its suggestions, the Supervisory Committee for Elections declared today. The Committee announced it would bring legal charges against weeklies Vreme and NIN and daily Glas Javnosti for publishing election result estimates during the media blackout. The Committee chastised daily Danas for publishing an advertisement on the last page urging voters to "kill the pests on Saturday". Television stations Studio B and state-run Radio Television Serbia were criticised for broadcasting footage of a recently opened Paris exhibition whose works display a negative attitude towards the Socialist Party of Serbia election candidates. Studio B was further admonished for broadcasting a DOS MP speaking and a politically biased image consisting of a torn photo of the Socialist Party of Serbia candidate and a Yugoslav Left leader. Television station Pink was criticised for broadcasting an interview with Yugoslav Interior Minister's advisor. YU Info television was castigated for not broadcasting the Committee statement in full. (Beta) POLITIKA BOSS HAS NOT FLED, SAYS LAWYER BELGRADE, December 23, 2000 - The former director of the Politika media corporation, Hadzi Dragan Antic had not fled the country and had no reason to do so, his lawyer, Dragoljub Todorovic, said this morning. Todorovic denied reports that Antic had left Yugoslavia on a one-way ticket to Havana. "Antic is abroad for convalescence and will return in three weeks," said the lawyer. Belgrade daily Vecernje novosti yesterday claimed that the former director of the Milosevic-friendly Politika had fled Yugoslavia on December 15 on an Aeroflot flight to Cuba via Moscow and did not hold a return ticket. MEDIA BLACKOUT BREACH "LED TO UNFAIR ELECTIONS" BELGRADE, December 25, 2000 - The Republican Election Commission will be asked to declare the results of yesterday's poll null and void on the grounds that violations of the media blackout gave the victors an unfair advantage. The move has been made by the Elections Surveillance Board, which represents the respective interests of the political parties. Its head Elena Bozic Talijan, who represents the Serbian Radical Party, said today: "The media competed to see who could violate the blackout the most. This means that the election procedure was highly irregular and the board will be applying to the commission to get the results annulled." She added that all the media "work for the Democratic Opposition of Serbia". However, DOS representative Sasa Vukadinovic refused to back his colleagues' initiative - prompting Bozic Talijan to walk wordlessly out of the press conference. He agreed that some media had broken the blackout, but through ignorance of the rules rather than bias towards any political party. MEDIA LYCNH CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE YUGOSLAV LEFT: MATIC BELGRADE, December 25, 2000 - Yugoslav Left high official Goran Matic said the results of the elections reflected the irregularity of the pre-election period. "An unscrupulous media lynch campaign has been conducted against the Yugoslav Left for the past two months," Matic told Radio B92. He added that the media had created a "police force" just before the elections, in order to create the impression that the Yugoslav Left was a criminal party. NEW OWNERS FOR TV KOSAVA BELGRADE, December 26, 2000 - A private television station founded by Marija Milosevic, the daughter of the former Yugoslav president, has changed hands. The new proprietors are Belgrade lawyer Borivoj Pajovic and Stjepan Egzet, Federal Telecommunications Minister Boris Tadic said today. Kosava resumed broadcasting recently after vanishing from the air during the October 5 revolution. Ministry inspectors have determined that the station is operating legally. Pajovic is the chairman of the board of Blic Press which publishes Belgrade daily Blic. ISAKAOV TO ABOLISH TAXES FOR STATE TV BELGRADE, December 26, 2000 - Taxes connected with state television are set to be abolished, the future director general of Radio Television Serbia said today. In an interview with Politika express, Mile Isakov said the tax that every household pays on electric meters for watching RTS plus every other kind of state tv taxes would be lifted. He also announced a massive shake-up of the company. "We shall have to find alternative financial sources, and what they will be depends on the state budget assets earmarked for television," said Isakov. He added that he would propose not to privatise any of the three state-owned channels, but to change the system. He envisaged changing the First channel into the news channel, with the news every hour, the Second into a cultural and educational channel , and the Third into a commercial channel with entertainment and sport shows. This last would finance the entire company. Isakov said that once he becomes the director he would not be "loyal and obedient to the authorities". He said that "mechanisms for protecting all media, even the state-owned, from the authorities should be introduced." He added that according to current regulations, the state media were greatly dependent on the authrorities and would therefore need a lot of time to adapt. "Journalists too will need to abandon the habit of dependence they have acquired over the last decade or more," he said. Regarding the broadcasting of independently produced news on RTS, he said the Association of Independent Electronic Media and the production group "Mreza" were lending a helping hand. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: MEDIA BLACKOUT BREACHES MADE ELECTIONS IRREGULAR BELGRADE, December 27, 2000 - The supervisory committee for election monitoring agreed by a majority yesterday that it was not authorised to take the initiative to repeal the Serbian parliamentary elections. A statement signed by the committee president and Serbian Radical Party representative Elena Bozic Talijan declared that the media had violated the law during the pre-electoral campaign, especially during the media blackout. The Committee remarked that "numerous and severe violations of the law made these elections irregular with respect to the media." It continued: "The Committee has been issuing statements continually, but the media either refused to publish them or shortened them, misinterpretated them or commented on them". IMPOVERISHED POPULATION "FUND LUXURY STAY" BELGRADE, December 28, 2000 - The Yugoslav tax-payer picked up a Montenegrin MP's hotel bill that was equal to ten times the average monthly salary, a Belgrade daily reports today. Federal MP Predrag Bulatovic's 880 DM bill for his four-day stay in Belgrade's Hotel Intercontinental was published by Glas Javnosti today. Asked to explain, the Socialist Party vice-president replied: "What do I know how much it costs!" He said that as an MP he was entitled to hotel accommodation, adding that he had paid for all the drinks out of his own pocket. "If you publish this I will pack immediately and leave for Podgorica, and never return to Belgrade," he declared. Glas Javnosti pondered the question of whether it was really necessary in times of economic crisis for Yugoslavia's MPs to stay in the most expensive hotels. MATIC ACCUSES CEKIC OF ANTI-DOS SMEAR CAMPAIGN BELGRADE, December 28, 2000 - Radio Index's broadcasting of a supposed Democratic Opposition of Serbia financial report is an attempt by its director to smear the coalition's name, the chairman of the Association of Independent Electronic Media said today. Veran Matic said that the report was obviously forged. He accused Radio Index's director of following a dubious tradition by using information from sources such as head of the Belgrade Socialists Ivica Dacic, who in turn was quoting from the Serbian Renewal Movement's party newspaper Srpska rec. Stressing that Nenad Cekic's intention had been to discredit DOS and, in particular, its campaign manager Zoran Djindjic, Matic said that suspicions should have been aroused right from the start. "Cekic also quoted Ivica Dacic quoting Srpska rec that ANEM got $11.2 million from the State Department," said Matic. He added that it was well known that the State Department does not give donations, leaving other organisations to deal with them. TV KOSAVA TO GET REVAMP BELGRADE, December 28, 2000 - TV Kosava is to be relaunched under a new name with a varied programme, its new co-owner said today. He declined to comment on whether the owner of Austrian company Mitsui - also the co-owner of Blic press and a minority shareholder of TV Pink - was behind the change. TV Kosava went off the air after the October 5 revolution, when a number of companies withdrew from the station, leaving former president's daughter Marija Milosevic as the sole owner. BELGRADE YOUTH COUNCIL RETURNS B92 EQUIPMENT. BELGRADE, December 28, 2000 - The Belgrade Youth Council's new management has returned the Radio B92 equipment which the former Council president, Vladan Zagradjanin, took from the radio's offices to his study. Belgrade Youth Council is the organisation which took over Radio B92 during the NATO campaign in April 1999. It presented itself as the owner of the Public Broadcasting Company Radio B92 until 15 days after the revolution of October 5 when the Commercial Court Judge Milena Arezina's illegal decisions were overturned. Radio B92 welcomed the decision of the Council's new management. VIPER PROBES INTO BK AND PINK BEOGRAD, 29.12.2000. - A special organised crime-fighting unit code-named Viper is currently investigating the business dealings of the Karic Brothers and Radio Television Pink, B92 learnt today. SERBIAN JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION DEFIES COURT ORDER BELGRADE, December 29, 2000 - Independent Journalists Association representatives accompanied by a bailiff failed to enter their offices in the Journalists' Centre in Belgrade today. Although they now have permission to enter the offices, the locksmith could not break through the lock that the Serbian Journalists Association had put on the door. The Independent Journalists Association contends that the Centre was built in part using funds levied from their members, yet the Serbian Journalists Association has unfairly denied them the right to enter their offices in the Centre and make use of the space since 1976. On December 21, the Fourth Belgrade Municipal Court ruled that the Independent Journalists Association had the right to enter the offices. JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION TERMINATES RADICALS BOYCOTT BELGRADE, December 29, 2000 - The Independent Association of Serbian Journalists has decided to terminate the boycott of the Serbian Radical Party in the interests of their profession and respect of democracy, secretary Dragutin Rokvic explained in a statement to B92 today. Since the boycott came about in response to threats from the Radical leaders to independent media journalists, B92 asked Rokvic what has changed in the meantime. "That was an agreement of the editors way before the election campaign. The basic motive was to prevent discrimination against the profession and threats to journalists. The editors, media representatives, and directors decided then to respect democracy and allow representatives of this party to be heard, despite their not having behaved like decent politicians," Rokvic said. The Association of Independent Electronic Media and B92 will resume the boycott. B92 WINS RATINGS BATTLE BELGRADE, December 29, 2000 - Radio B92 has outstripped its rivals by a comfortable margin to become Belgrade's most listened-to station. More than 430,000 people tune in regularly for an average of an hour-and-a-half a day, the Strategic Marketing Agency said today. This is despite the fact that the station was off the air between May and October. In second and third place are Radio Index and Radio Belgrade, with 346,000 and 232,000 listeners respectively. MIODRAG VUJOVIC - ANEM IS ALL TALK AND NO ACTION NOVI SAD, December 29, 2000 - The owner of tv station Palma accused ANEM of "yelling and roaring" but failing to take decisive action in a magazine interview today. Responding to the question, "And if there were no ANEM, a wealthy man from Texas could throw lots of dollars your way and become a part-owner, a sponsor.", Miodrag Vujovic replied that the initiative was stupid. "Who are they to make such orders?" he said. "If we were to go back 50 years, to the strict communist rules, then that's the end of us. ANEM can only yell and roar. All their supposed journalists complained about the distribution of frequencies by the Yugoslav Government but did not do anything concrete until I submitted an initiative with the Supreme Constitutional Court which was, miraculously, accepted. We shared the same aims but the difference is that they made a political hullabaloo while I went into action." Vujovic, who is also the leader of the Serbian Progress Party, made the comments in an interview entitled "Porn at Two: Serving Serbia and the Orthodoxy" in the January 1 2001 issue of Novi Sad magazine Svet. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net