12. 11. 2005

“MEDIA IS NOT PRESSURED”

BELGRADE, November 12, 2005 – Culture and Information Minister Dragan Kojadinovic said today that journalists should stop complaining about state pressure on the media because there is none. The situation was worse under Slobodan Milosevic, said the minister. Kojadinovic was responding to the European Commission’s report on Serbia-Montenegro which identified the situation in the media, together with the judiciary and organized crime as major problems facing Serbia. According to the report there have been cases of state security services threatening journalists and thus endangering free media. Kojadinovic says that there is no pressure of the kind which existed under Milosevic and after October 5, 2000. “I think that the time for whining and complaining has passed and I urge all journalists, and I was one of them for thirty years, to finally turn to professional work and if there is pressure, and especially if that pressure comes from state bodies, to publicly speak about it and let’s see who now can apply any kind of pressure,” said the minister. The Serbian Government claims that responsibility for the state of the media lies with the former government and that it has not been able to sort this out over the past eighteen months.