On the platform of the Council of Europe for the Protection of Journalism and the Safety of Journalists, four new cases were posted from Serbia: death threats to the editor of “Drvotehnika” Dragojlo Blagojević and the editor of the Leskovac portal “Rešetka” to Dragan Marinović, intimidation of the editor of Insider TV Brankica Stanković and an attack on the Bulgarian National Television team nearby Bosilegrad.
The editor of the magazine “Drvotehnika” Blagojević was called on the night between July 12 and 13 by a man who introduced himself as Stanko Vasić and said to him: “Dargojlo, is that you? Is that the deceased, who died a year ago. And he is not , it’s not, it’s just going to die”.
Blagojević doubts that this is his real name, he reported the threats to the police, he assumes that it has something to do with the article “Distribution of raw materials from state forests under the veil of secrecy”, published in the July issue.
In March, Dragan Marinović, the editor of the “Rešetka” portal, was sitting with his wife and a colleague in a local restaurant when a man approached him and started insulting and threatening him.
The unknown man referred to a very important name in the city, allegedly all because he wrote about a man who tragically lost his life, but Marinović did not report the threats to the police, because “he had reported similar threats in the past without results and had completely lost his faith to institutions”.
The chief and responsible editor of Insider TV, Brankica Janković, was under police protection for years because of the threats made to her during the 2009 match.
At the match between Partizan and Budućnost, played on May 22, 2009 in Belgrade, the fans chanted “B92 police show, Brankica will lie to you that Thursday”.
The threats and intimidation happened a few days after the rerun of the show from 2009 on Insider TV, in which Stanković pointed out the connection between fans and crime. On that occasion, she stated that neither the police nor the prosecutor’s office contacted her, and the prime minister’s office condemned the incident.
The crew of the Bulgarian National Television, which included journalist and producer Bogdana Lazarova, cameramen Dimitar Slavov and Nikolaj Andreev, and technician Robert Vacov, together with environmental activists from Bulgaria and Bosliegrad, were attacked while filming a report on the pollution of the natural environment, which is assumed to be caused by from the Podvirovi mine near Bosilegrad.
As stated by Dimitar Dimitrov, who was driving the press team, “a group of workers together with the director of ‘Bosil-metal’ Miodrag Vukajlović suddenly pelted them with stones”, where one stone hit him and broke the camera, as well as punching him in the chest .
The police in Bosilegrad opened an investigation into the incident, team members gave statements, and members of the group that attacked them were questioned, RTS announced.
On the platform of the Council of Europe this year, 11 cases of attacks and threats against journalists in Serbia were recorded, for which the perpetrators were not found or were not brought to justice.
In addition to the above, there is also the case of Danijela Mirkov, Sara Mikić and Sava Majstorova, journalists from the So info portal who were accused of being the organizers of the protests in Sombor due to the announcement and reporting on the blockades in Sombor.
Threats sent by email to the newsrooms of Danas and N1 television, as well as death threats to the program director of the Independent Association of Journalists of Vojvodina (NDNV), journalist Dink Gruhonjić and his family, were recorded.
The platform also contains threatening messages addressed to Verica Marinčić, a journalist from the IN media portal from India, and Miljko Stojanović, a Danas correspondent from Zaječar.
The Platform of the Council of Europe also noted the accusations against investigative media journalists “for conspiracy against President Aleksandar Vučić”, made in the film by Tomislav Lovreković, broadcast on Pink Television. Vreme, Danas, KRIK, CINS, N1, NIN and Nova are directly mentioned in the film.