Anniversary of the Law on Information

Stifling the Media - Pursuant the Law

AIM Podgorica, 24 October, 1999 (By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

By the trial to the printing works ABC Grafika and director of Glas daily which was taken to court because it printed the opposition bulletin called Promene (Changes) by the Republican Ministry of Information (it raised the total of 52 charges), by pronouncing the sentences to newspapers Niske novine and then Kikindske novine and their editors-in-chief, Serbian regime has in its specific way marked the anniversary of passing the Law on Public Information. The "Black October" for the media began on 8 October last year when the notorious Decree on Emergency Measures in Conditions of Threat of NATO Armed Attacks on FR Yugoslavia was issued which banned re-broadcasting of foreign radio programs by local media and "spreading of defeatism" concerning local circumstances. It continued twelve days later by enacting of the Law on Information and issuing of this year's Decree on Information in Conditions of War.

The annual score of disciplining the media according to the documentation of Media Centre is as follows: 20 editoral teams were prosecuted pursuant this Law, 29 sentences were passed since some of the media were punished a few times (Glas javnosti, for instance - no less than six times), and the total of all pronounced fines amounts to 16 million dinars (one million German marks). Some of the sentences were nullified later on, so that not all 16 million dinars were paid into the budget.

The Law on Information which as soon as it was passed the experts said was "unconstitutional" and "monstrous", that "according to its illegal solutions it was unique among other positive regulations" did not cause the law-maker to waver: many were tried and sentenced pursuant its provisions and moreover, it was claimed all the time that it was a modern law which protects human rights and freedoms, but also that "it was the end of lies and journalistic mercenaries and traitors". One of the ardent advocates of this Law, deputy prime minister who has resigned but is still in office, in answer to the proposal of the opposition that this law be abolished, stated that "the Law shall never be abolished, especially its provisions which refer to re-broadcasting of foreign propaganda and libel".

In the practically unprecedented cooperation of the federal Ministry of Telecommunications, the mentioned Republican decree and the Law, with abundant assistance of financial police, a showdown with the media began which, according to the opinion of the regime, were spreading defeatism and lies: for the one or the other reason (the authorities dexterously combined them) both the press and radio and TV stations also found themselves in the line of fire of the Law. During last October, Radio Indeks, Radio Senta, Radio Kikinda, TV Pirot were all banned... Immediately after the state of war was proclaimed, Radio B92 disappeared from the air. Belgrade Youth League, as the alleged owner, usurped the premises and the equipment, and threw the editorial team of the popular "92" out into the street.

The offended "patriots", careerists, revengers, got their day - by lodging a single appeal they were given the possibility to get a promotion on state TV and to financially ruin a newspaper or a radio or a TV station. The by now famous Patriotic League of Yugoslavia, known probably only to its members before it lodged an appeal against Evropljanin magazine, was the first to implement the Law: its patriotic discontent received full satisfaction at court because by 24 October already, Evropljanin was fined by 2,400,000 dinars. Two days later the equipment and property was confiscated from the owner of Evropljanin and Dnevni telegraf daily, Slavko Curuvija, a few months later he was sentencesd to five months in prison, and finally it all got a tragic epilogue: Curuvija was killed in front of the building in which he lived.

Apart from Dnevni telegraf and Evropljanin, as result of the Law, as their publishers declared, another two dailies were shut down: Nasa borba and NT Plus. After a short interruption, daily Danas continued operation but this time registered in Montenegro. This did not help it to avoid fines and even confiscation of a whole issues for some time.

Protests of the public against punishments and shutting down of the media were lukewarm and attended by just a few so that the regime did not even notice them, and as for reactions of journalists' associations, it has never given heed either to the local or the foreign ones. Punishing of the "disobedient" went smoothly. And then the month of March came, NATO bombing, the state of war, censorship. It was a gift of providence for it gave the regime the opportunity to finally put all the media in order and in "uniform". After the war had ended and alomng with it the rule of censorship, the spirit of the Law was reactivated.

For those who could not be reached by justice through the Law on Information, the regime made an effort to find another "remedy". The latest case of Banja Luka Reporter, weekly from the Republic of Srpska is esopecially interesting in this sense. The whole issue of this weekly was confiscated on 21 September near Sremska Raca at the border of the Republic of Srpska with Yugoslavia. In the decision sent to the editorial office two days later it was stated that the issue (8,000 copies for the readers in FR Yugoslavia) had been confiscated because of founded suspicion that it had violated Article 157 of the Criminal Law of FRY. This article sanctions the insult of the insignia of the Republic, and the prescribed punishment is imprisonment up to three years.

While the editorial team was waiting to see "what the state wants and what the indictment will be", a new surprise waited for them: Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) banned bringing of Reporter into Yugoslavia on 16 October. MUP sent its decision to the general distributer of Reporter in FR Yugoslavia, Data press, referring to Paragraph two Article 257 of the Law on general administrative procedure. It is a provision according to which the authority which isues permits for import "may withdraw the given permit in case of acquiring new knowledge which may affect its change of decision". That is how distribution of Reporter on the territory of serbia was banned.

What does Perica Vucinic, the owner and editor-in-chief, think about the ban of distribution of Reporter and the future moves? In a statement for AIM, he says: "I look upon this fact as a publisher, not as a politician. This is a matter of repression by the regime, of course. What can I do in this case? I must fight, but the ban of entrance of the journal into Yugoslavia is not motivated by legal reasons but political. Therefore, legal struggle for finding a more favourable status for my paper has been eliminated. How can I fight by political means when I an no politician, when I have no party to back me, when after all I have no political ambitions. Maybe I can do something only if I have the solidarity of my colleagues, other publishers".

A similar thing happened last year to Monitor weekly which was fined to pay 2,800,000 dinars. The employed in Monitor learnt about the indictment and then the pronounced sentence on the radio. The trial and pronouncing of the sentence took place in absence of the leading people of this Montenegrin weekly. They did not pay the fine, of course, but immediately after the sentence had been passed, the police saw to it that the whole issue of Monitor sent for the readers in Serbia be confiscated.

In this endless struggle, in the attempt to find their way around to escape control of the regime, independent media seem to have used all the recipes. When the regime gets tired of the haggling, when it appears to it that the efforts of the media which are charged with intimidation and which are linked to the regime like to an influsion and which are frantically repeating the stories about "traitors", "NATO mercenaries", the regime resorts to the Law pursuant which the prosecutor need not offer evidence for the indictment and the indicted must give evidence of its innocence within 24 hours. Those who fail to do that, shall be fined, their property confiscated or they shall be taken to jail if unable to pay the fine.

Vesna Bjekic

(AIM)