13. 07. 2005

WHO WAS JAMMING THE MEDIA

BELGRADE, July 13, 2005 – Five years after the democratic changes in Serbia, people close to Milosevic’s regime are still highly ranked in the Serbian Army. General Dobroslav Radovanovic, Chief of Yugoslav Army’s Bureau for electronic inspection and anti-electronic activities, today the OSCE Chief of regional military mission, took part in planning and implementation of jamming the signal of independent electronic media with army resources before October 5, 2000. Vladan Vlajkovic’s book “Top Secret”, published over a year ago, brought transcriptions from the meeting held on July 18, 2000 with Dobroslav Radovanovic and other military high officials, representatives of the then regime and State Security Service. The purpose of the meeting was to prepare the strategy of jamming the independent electronic media in the country. Although there was no legal act which endorsed frequencies jamming, the Defense Minister Prvoslav Davinic justified the army officials by saying that they were acting in line with the regulations of that time. “Once the procedure is over and official opinion on the book made, we’ll get the answer regarding the responsibility or irresponsibility of persons mentioned there. However, there are also many others mentioned in the book, who were in high positions at the time”, said Davinic. Charges against the author of the book “Top Secret” Vladan Vlajkovic were brought for criminal act of revealing top military secrets. However, the court had never started the proceedings, and the book that revealed the misconduct of former army chiefs has never been banned. B92 and Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) had filed a legal complaint in June last year to the deputy Prosecutor Emilija Milosavljevic, against the persons who participated in the planning and implementation of the frequency jamming of independent electronic media. Since the Prosecution failed to get the copy of the book “Top Secret” from the army representatives, the case was status quo. However, ANEM legal representative has provided the copy of the book to the Prosecution, but still without any developments.