Independent status cause of attack

Belgrade - May 24 - The B92 web site is not only the most visited Internet portal in the region, but also the most influential source of information on issues, events and developments at the local and regional scale, as well as a dynamic medium that has a considerable impact on political and social life in Serbia and the region. B92 has been the target and victim of a great number of all kinds of attacks in its history and was shut down four times during the Milosevic era.

Our Internet portal has allowed us to circumvent these measures whenever they were inflicted upon other parts of our system and today it has evolved into a powerful media outlet, fully integrated with the rest of our outlets into a complex, sophisticated and modern media network. Precisely the strength of our media system and its free and independent status are most probably the reasons for this latest attack. An additional reason may well be the fact that the political map of the region is changing once again. A new country in Europe has been born through a peaceful referendum in the past few days - Montenegro, and by year's end a final solution for the status of Kosovo is also expected.

All this provides ample cause for extremists to block the only media outlet in the country that provides opportunities for a free and civilised debate between Albanians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosniacs, Croats and all other peoples of the region and wider.

However, just as we had managed to overcome all of Milosevic's measures, bans and intimidations in the past, we will continue investing all of our efforts to neutralise these and any future attacks on our freedom and independence.

Veran Matic, B92 CEO
Belgrade, May 24th 2006