28. 07. 2006

“DEFENSE OF MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY”

BELGRADE, July 28, 2006 (B92/Beta) - Boris Tadić vetoed the amendments to the Broadcasting law to protect the citizens from the stifling of the media freedoms. “Never have the media been under such attack since the infamous Milošević-Radicals-JUL sponsored Law on information. As the president of Sebia, I cannot allow for our country to regress to that time and annul the results of our stuggle for democracy we achieved on October 5, 2000“, Tadić writes in an article in the daily Blic. “Today the freedom of the media represents the cornerstone of the democratic quality of every society. Therefore I see the defense of the freedom of the media as my obligation as the president, since I simultaneously work do defend the citizens’ constitutional rights to be informed and freely express their opinion. But these are also my obligations as a democrat, since I fight to support a part of the democratic, European heritage”, Tadić writes. Tadić writes that the decision not to sign the Act on the law on amendments to the Law on broadcasting, created a possibility for the members of the parliament to consider the relevant expert opinions, as well as those by the international organizations, all the more so since a public debate on the law never took place. According to the Serbian president, the Broadcasting law was meant to prevent the government’s interference with the media, and had established an independent regulatory body to this end. However, the practice so far and the latest amendments to the law show the opposite: a tendency to place that regulatory agency under the government’s control. Tadić writes that he had made his decision governed by the following principles: a state that aspires to join the EU must legislate according to the EU standards; the Broadcasting Agency must be independent and must report to the Parliament; political parties and their leaders must not own media outlets; the media must be equal before the law and must in their activities seek to protect the basic principles and values of a democratic and a civilized society.