20. 12. 2010

Report on ANEM Press conference, December 20, 2010.

Measures against illegal broadcasters  

One in the series of ANEM activities related to solving the problem of illegal broadcasting of Radio/TV program was the press conference titled "Measures against illegal broadcasters", organized on December 20, 2010 in Belgrade Media Centre. In search of more efficient ways to solve this problem, in the last two years ANEM implemented various activities, pointing to the consequences of not solving the problem as well as the need for a more coordinated and synchronized action of all competent bodies in this field. With this aim, ANEM organized a press conference back in December 2008; submitted official letters (to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to the Republic Agency of Electronic Communications), organized meetings with competent bodies (meeting with the Ministry of Interior, meeting with representatives of all competent bodies), and a part of the anti-crisis measures that ANEM proposed back in April 2009 was also related to closing of illegal stations.

By organizing this conference, ANEM intended to inform the media and the public, with the participation of representatives of the competent bodies in this field, on the conclusions of the meeting held on December 2, 2010, which related to the solving of the problem of illegal broadcasting as a big obstacle to regular functioning of the Serbian media system. At the press conference, the following speakers addressed the attendees: Goran Karadzic, Deputy President of the RBA Council; Milan Jankovic, Director of RATEL; Branko Stamenkovic, Head of the Special High-Tech Crime Department of the Public Prosecutor's Office; Irini Reljin, Assistant Minister at the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society, Sinisa Isakov, Assistant Secretary at the Provincial Secretariat of Economy - Department for Transportation and Telecommunications and Goran Macura, the Head of the Department for General Supervision, the Ministry of Trade and Services. At the press conference, the following topics were discussed: legal consequences of illegal broadcasting, practical consequences of illegal work of broadcasters to operations of legal stations, results of the hitherto undertaken measures, the current situation in this field, currently undertaken measures and those to be undertaken against illegal broadcasters and new possibilities for the efficient solving of this problem envisaged in the Law on Electronic Communications.

In his opening remarks, ANEM President Sasa Mirkovic explained the importance of organizing this conference for broadcasters in Serbia, stating the illegal broadcasting as a problem that had been dealt with for a number of years. Apart from signal interference, other problems are also the dumping advertising rates on those stations, which directly economically threaten the legal broadcasters. He reminded that ANEM, aiming to effectively fight the broadcasting "piracy", held two important meetings this year that had an obvious result - the first in February, at the Ministry of Internal Affairs with the Police Minister Ivica Dacic and Police Director, Veljovic, where ANEM was promised that this Ministry would, if there were legal requirements, include and provide assistance in controlling and closing of the "pirate" radio and TV stations. So far, the Ministry is keeping their promise. The second meeting was held with RATEL on December 2, with this press conference as its direct result. He pointed out that there were a number of relevant institutions and agencies that should participate in solving this problem and expressed his satisfaction that all relevant actors had finally managed to sit down at the same table, which only proved that the things had started to move in the right direction.

Milan Jankovic, director of RATEL, said that there were currently 46 stations in Serbia identified to be broadcasting without valid licenses, namely 11 in Belgrade and surroundings, 8 in Novi Sad, 12 in Vojvodina without Novi Sad, 14 in other regions and one broadcaster (Radio Stil Balkan) transmitting from several locations. He concluded that the hard work that both agencies (RBA and RATEL) had invested, together with other relevant government authorities, gave very good results, given that from the start of joint action, from September 1, 2008 to date, the number of illegal radio stations had been reduced from 207 down to 46. In order to carry out the closing down of the illegal broadcasters by the end, assistance of other competent authorities, particularly MUP, is needed, said Jankovic. He said that the Law on Electronic Communications altered jurisdiction of RATEL, which would now need to provide collected data on illegal broadcasting to the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society, whose inspectors were now authorized to close illegally broadcasting stations.

Goran Karadzic, Deputy Chairman of the RBA Council, stressed that the most serious work was still ahead, namely the closing down of the remaining 46 the most persisting stations broadcasting without the license. He noted that in 560 working days, during the said joint action, the RBA brought 558 different decisions, including 146 criminal charges against illegal broadcasters (out of which 34 for breaking the official seal). He also noted that the above results were part of the successful cooperation with the Special Department for High-tech Crime of the Public Prosecutor's Office and that the RBA was doing everything in its power to put the "pirate broadcasting" in Serbia to an end. In that sense, the RBA has recently initiated the monitoring of illegal broadcasters and the authorities have been provided with the first results of this action namely which phone numbers were being used for quizzes, joining the program on air, text messages and the like. Thanks to cooperation with the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society and Telecom Serbia, the actions were taken to identify the users of these numbers, while Telecom would be required to take away those phone numbers and prevent the acquisition of new ones. Karadzic believes that the disabling of profit earning will additionally contribute to reducing the number of "pirate" radio and TV stations. Asked by reporters about whether there were any information on how much the work of illegal broadcasters had cost the state and the media, Karadzic said that such estimates did not exist, but that the resources were large and that the media and regulatory bodies that invested their resources in solving this problem, the overall advertising market and the state, had certainly suffered significant damage.

Irini Reljin, Assistant Minister at the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Society, said that this ministry had been monitoring the issue of illegal broadcasting for many years; however, the problem was that the previous Law on Telecommunications did not envisage the existence of inspection. New Law on Electronic Communications from June 2010 created the possibility to act more effectively, with provisions that stipulated the work of inspectors under this Ministry. She said that it was expected that inspections would soon begin operations after the necessary preparatory work was done, and that it would work in cooperation with other competent authorities in line with the data obtained from RATEL.

Branko Stamenkovic, Head of the Special Department for high-tech crime of the Public Prosecutor's Office, pointed out that this Department was competent on the entire territory of Serbia, which enabled more efficient action. He stated that specific measures were established at the meeting of the RBA and the Public Prosecutor, which the Public Prosecution of the Republic of Serbia would take in order to fight this illegal phenomenon. He said that to date, the RBA had filed 112 criminal charges for illegal broadcasting to the Special Department of Public Prosecutor's Office for high-tech crime. The department has filed a petition with relevant regional police stations or departments for collection of necessary data in each of these cases, and the reports are awaited for 29 more. Based on the information provided, each case is carefully analyzed and so far, in 26 cases, proposals have been submitted for undertaking certain investigative actions to the Special Department of the High Court in Belgrade for fight against high-tech crime, on suspicion that a criminal offense has been made under Article 353 of the Criminal Code - unauthorized practice of business. Following the investigations by the competent court, the Prosecution will decide how to proceed in these cases, but it can be said with a large percentage of probability that the greatest number of complaints and these cases would be further processed. In each of these cases, wherever there are the legal requirements, Special Department will, in addition to regular field visits (a petition filed with the police to establish the facts), propose to the competent investigating judge to order the seizure, i.e. temporary confiscation of broadcasting equipment, as under the Criminal Code, the equipment is regarded as an evidence and subject to execution of a particular criminal offense.

Stamenkovic also said there were synchronized actions of the competent authorities at all levels. So, the regional police departments are taking comprehensive assessments in the field that result in the filing of complaints to local prosecutors, who then take further legal actions. The action is thus carried out on two parallel fronts - national and local. This Special Department will take all legally available measures to stop this phenomenon, Stamenkovic said.

Responding to a journalists' question, Stamenkovic named the sanctions for criminal offenses related to illegal broadcasting. He explained that illegal broadcasting was punishable by imprisonment up to two years, but that, in case of frequency overlapping, the sentence was imprisonment up to three years as a criminal act of preventing transmission. In extreme cases, such as overlapping of frequencies of the Air Traffic Control at the Nikola Tesla Airport, when there was a reasonable doubt of endangering the safety or causing general danger, depending on consequences, the work of illegal broadcasters could be sanctioned with the fine of imprisonment of five or more years. Milan Jankovic added that in situations where illegal broadcasters had threatened the safety, as in the case of overlap with the air traffic control frequencies, an urgent reaction was necessary, especially as the authorities knew exactly which stations illegally broadcast in the airport area.

Sinisa Isakov, Assistant Secretary at the Provincial Secretariat of Economy - Department for Transportation and Telecommunications said that "broadcasting piracy" was one of the greatest problems of the media in Vojvodina, reminding that in Novi Sad there had been more illegal than legal radio stations until recently. He believes that work of illegal media could be brought under the "grey zone" of economy, having in mind its consequences not only to broadcasters, but also to print media and the whole advertizing business in the country. Experience of other countries has shown that the joint actions of competent bodies could bring the most efficient results in the fight against illegal broadcasters and that is exactly what is being implemented in our case. "The Provincial Secretariat of Economy has a legal duty and assignment to organize inspection on the Vojvodina territory. Inspectors will start their job on the field soon, but, in case of need, we have also prepared some solutions regarding amendments to the relevant regulations in order to entirely solve this problem", Isakov said.  

Goran Macura, the Head of the Department for General Supervision, Ministry of Trade and Services stressed out that one of the ways of fighting illegal broadcasting was also related to the implementation of the Advertising Law as well as other relevant laws, and especially provisions on the control of goods and services, which market inspection was competent for. The Department of Market Inspection of the Ministry has been dealing with "black" and "grey" zone of economy for many years as well as illegal trading of goods and services, as is the case with both illegal broadcasters and those advertising on "pirate" stations. Prices of advertizing services on these stations are often lower and realized without invoices and filled declarations, because of which the advertisers who also run their business illegally often decide to use advertizing services of such illegal stations. Macura pointed out that the Ministry would take action and implement all legal measures in case of irregularities, by keeping records and performing controls under jurisdiction of the market inspection and other inspections, too. 

Thanking ANEM for organizing this press conference and its commitment in the fight against illegal broadcasting, the representatives of the competent bodies expressed their assurance that the way in which they were engaged within their jurisdictions, in cooperation with other bodies, would lead to the permanent solving of this problem. ANEM will further monitor the situation in this field and cooperate with other media associations and competent bodies until this problem is completely solved.