Media urged to join protest on World Press Freedom Day

Media urged to join protest on World Press Freedom Day

NUNS and Nezavisnost said, on the occasion of May 3, World Press Freedom Day, that "freedom is the right to tell people the truth" and that the role of media workers is "not to fulfill the wishes of powerful persons."

They said that journalists "must achieve unity and raise their voice" when "one man has occupied and monopolized almost the complete public scene, exploiting it to the extreme," while hundreds of journalists lost their jobs, as others are paid less money, and irregularly, even in the most profitable media.

NUNS and Nezavisnost also appealed on the public in Serbia to remember the impunity of crimes against journalists, reminding that "23 years have not been enough to discover who killed journalist Dada Vujasonovic, it is not know even after 18 years who gave the order to kill colleague Slavko Curuvija, the killers and those who gave the order to kill jourbalist Milan Pantic remain unknown and unpunished for 16 years."

UNS said today that during the past year, both the authorities and the opposition demonstrated arrogance toward journalists and media, with editors swiftly replaced or illegally sacked, while reporters have been discriminated because of their newsrooms' editorial policy.

This association wants the government to launch changes to the Law on Public Information and Media in order to obligate all levels of government to announce competitions for media content project financing.

UNS also wants the government and the media community to establish dialogue on important issues regarding media freedoms, to urgently solve the status of the Tanjug news agency and finalize the privatization of Vecernje Novosti and Politika.

UNS urged the government to provide all the necessary support to the Commission for Investigation of Murders of Journalists, while their message to the Special War Crimes Prosecution is start doing its job when it comes to 39 reporters and media workers from Serb newsrooms who have been killed during the civil war in Yugoslavia, in Kosovo, and during NATO's aggression - "instead of for years, without any results, based on a NUNS complaint, investigating the responsibility of journalist suspected of preparing and organizing war crimes and genocide."