30. 06. 2005

SERBIAN AND KOSOVO JOURNALISTS MEET IN BELGRADE

BELGRADE, June 30, 2005 – Journalists from a range of companies in Kosovo and Serbia today met under the slogan “Media dialogue Belgrade-Pristine,” in Belgrade’s Park Hotel. The meeting was intended as an exchange of ideas and possibilities for collaboration and better provision of information to the public. It was organized as part of Civilian Dialogue and opened by representatives of that project’s organizers, the Centre for Regionalism from Belgrade and the Mother Teresa Society from Pristine, together with the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. Centre for Regionalism director Aleksandar Popov and the Mother Teresa Society’s Zef Shalja spoke of the need for the Serbian public to be better informed of events in Kosovo and vice versa. Shalja said that the media could play an important role in presenting the process of implementing standards, the democratic society in Kosovo and establishing real conditions for the return of refugees, which is also one of the standards imposed by the international community. Popov told the gathering that ten journalists form Kosovo who had planned to take part in the conference and who had not been in Belgrade before were prevented from entering Serbia because they only had UNMIK documents and feared being turned back by Serb police at the administrative border. He proposed that media could assist in resolving this problem which he described as a serious hindrance to cooperation between Pristina and Belgrade because Kosovo citizens who hold the UNMIK documents only have a problem in Serbia while other countries in the region accept them for travel. Popov and Shalja agreed that the common goal of Kosovo and all of Serbia is association with a united Europe. Shalja called on the journalists present to “at least report this gathering realistically and without fear of the authorities”, adding that information from Serbia in Kosovo and from Kosovo in Serbia must no longer arrives decimated by censorship in the state media. Among journalists and editors from Radio Television Kosovo and several dailies from Kosovo in Albanian and Turkish language, and representatives from Belgrade media, the president of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina Dinko Gruhonjic and RTV B92’s Editor-in-chief Veran Matic were also present at the gathering.