20. 08. 2005

THREATS BECAUSE OF ILIC

BELGRADE, August 20, 2005 (B92) – The trend of insulting and threatening journalists was also adopted in Bela Crkva. Namely, owner of the private radio station TNT from Bela Crkva Stefan Cvetkovic protested against the Capital Investment Minister Velimir Ilic’s insults and threats to B92 journalists by broadcasting witty jingles several times during the day with public statements and speeches of the minister, combined with the trumpet music or Rambo Amadeus songs. This kind of protest resulted in Cvetkovic receiving anonymous threats for the last couple of days. The case was reported to the police. After Cvetkovic started airing the jingles, the local authority suggested to him that the program could be put to an end because of such his protest. However, Cvetkovic thinks that there was more to it: “After threatening telephone calls, broadcasting of the program of the local radio on my frequency and obstructing my program, last night I found graffiti on the door of the radio and punctured tires on my private vehicle. There were also verbal threats over the phone with very offensive language, like: ‘Traitor, go back to where you came from, who’s paying you’ and so on. They finally stopped calling today, after I have reported the incidents to the police. I don’t know who is behind this, but it obviously comes from people who are bothered with the free local radio.” Cvetkovic also claimed that the pressures on Radio TNT intensified after the director of the Serbian Roads Directorate Branko Jocic had visited Bela Crkva. Cvetkovic believes that the representatives of the authorities in Bela Crkva were afraid that Jocic could stop all road works in this Serbian town due to the program of the private radio station. Cvetkovic said that he was not scared, adding that he planned to continue the protest despite the anonymous threats he had started to receive. Kostres demands Ilic’s dismissal President of the Vojvodina Parliament Bojan Kostres urged the Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica to dismiss the Capital Investment Minister Velimir Ilic for his recent “scandalous public statements”. Kostres told the Novi Sad media that “more scandalous from Ilic’s public statements was the silence of the prime minister Kostunica”, adding that it could only be interpreted as “a support and approval of Ilic’s verbal attacks on journalists”. “Prime Minister’s silence shows in fact that he and people around him never wanted October 5 to happen and that they are trying in every way to convince us that October 5 never happened. Hence, if he wants to be a serious prime minister, Kostunica ought to know that minister behaving like Ilic would have to be dismissed automatically”, said Kostres.