Global campaign to tackle violence against journalists

BRUSSELS The Commission for Investigation of Murder of Journalists and the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media have launched a global campaign. It aims to tackle threats and violence against journalists, and is linked to a UN initiative to fight against impunity and violence against journalists and media workers. Global campaign to tackle violence against journalists "The Commission is the first institutional response to this UN initiative and can become a model for similar situations in the world. In the past year, to solve the murders of three journalists in Serbia, committees and working groups have been working intensively, which has not been the case until now. We have also had in our country four journalists under 24-hour police protection for a worryingly long period of time, and it certainly should not be used as a permanent solution to ensure the safety of journalists," said Commission President Veran Matic. In addition to these cases, this year cases have been recorded in Serbia of discrimination against media and journalists by national and local governments, death threats, usually accompanied by threats addressed at the families of journalists, physical attacks and assassination attempts, hate speech against, and calls for their lynching. This includes the statements and activities of right-wing organizations, insults, threats, pressures from politicians and government officials, pressures on journalists by the media for which they work, the filing of criminal charges against journalists who are investigating corruption. These are all things to which the journalist community, associations and editorial staff must pay attention and constantly fight for a better position of their profession, it was said as the campaign was announced. For that reason the campaign is meant to, in part, spur the debate and define the true method of effective protection of journalists. "As part of the campaign we are making the Chronicle of Threats, an international project to collect the threats received by journalists and compile them, and, as a chronicle of sorts, hand it over to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who launched the initiative against impunity," said Matic. On the occasion of this campaign, a website has been launched, www.istina.co.rs, which will contain information about the murdered journalists and media workers, the cases that are also part of the mandate of the Commission. "It is an open invitation to all newsrooms and journalists to join in this campaign and provide information about threats and acts of violence toward the editorial staff and journalists, in order to put together a complete White Book on threats and violence against journalists in 2013," Matic stated. The campaign has been produced by the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency on a pro-bono basis. (B92, file) B92

Global campaign to tackle violence against journalists

"The Commission is the first institutional response to this UN initiative and can become a model for similar situations in the world. In the past year, to solve the murders of three journalists in Serbia, committees and working groups have been working intensively, which has not been the case until now. We have also had in our country four journalists under 24-hour police protection for a worryingly long period of time, and it certainly should not be used as a permanent solution to ensure the safety of journalists," said Commission President Veran Matić.

In addition to these cases, this year cases have been recorded in Serbia of discrimination against media and journalists by national and local governments, death threats, usually accompanied by threats addressed at the families of journalists, physical attacks and assassination attempts, hate speech against, and calls for their lynching.

This includes the statements and activities of right-wing organizations, insults, threats, pressures from politicians and government officials, pressures on journalists by the media for which they work, the filing of criminal charges against journalists who are investigating corruption.

These are all things to which the journalist community, associations and editorial staff must pay attention and constantly fight for a better position of their profession, it was said as the campaign was announced.

For that reason the campaign is meant to, in part, spur the debate and define the true method of effective protection of journalists.

"As part of the campaign we are making the Chronicle of Threats, an international project to collect the threats received by journalists and compile them, and, as a chronicle of sorts, hand it over to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who launched the initiative against impunity," said Matić.

On the occasion of this campaign, a website has been launched, www.istina.co.rs, which will contain information about the murdered journalists and media workers, the cases that are also part of the mandate of the Commission.

"It is an open invitation to all newsrooms and journalists to join in this campaign and provide information about threats and acts of violence toward the editorial staff and journalists, in order to put together a complete White Book on threats and violence against journalists in 2013," Matić stated.

The campaign has been produced by the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency on a pro-bono basis.