The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) has condemned pressures exerted on the daily newspaper Borba after publication of an article about the decision made by the Government of Serbia to pay one million dollars to ensure that the trial of Miladin Kovacevic, accused of inflicting injuries on American student Brian Steinhauer, will be held in Serbia instead of in the US.
The police first announced a hearing and examination of Borba because of the publication of state secrets, although later Minister of Internal Affairs Ivica Dacic said that investigators would not be sent. At the same time, Dacic informed the owner of the newspaper, Ivan Radovanovic, and the editor-in-chief, Olivera Zekic, that they would be required to make an official statement to the police. Dacic said that the police are obliged to acquire all the necessary information about the case on orders from the prosecutor's office.
ANEM noted that media outlets are allowed to publish information of public importance regardless of the manner in which such information was discovered, in accordance with the Law on Public Information. ANEM also pointed out that the same law stipulated that the journalist (who authored the article) is not required to reveal the source of information in this case.
The acting public prosecutor, Slobodan Radovanovic, said that the prosecutor's office was not interested in the media outlet and the journalist who published the information about the case of Miladin Kovacevic, which has been declared a state secret, but in the persons who gave the journalist the information and violated its confidentiality. The prosecutor pointed out that the prosecutor's office always supported and protected the freedom of the media and public discourse and will continue to act in such a manner, including in this case.
ANEM supported the point of view of the acting public prosecutor, who announced that criminal charges may be brought against the persons who revealed the state secret, but not against the journalists and the media who reported on the information that has already been made public.
This has not always been the case, ANEM said and appealed to the prosecutor's office to drop the criminal charges against TV B92 journalists Ivana Momcilovic, Jasmina Karanac and Antigona Andonov, who will be examined at a court hearing on the orders of the Fourth Municipal Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade. The journalists have been accused of publishing parts of the wiretapping transcriptions in the case of the so-called "road mafia", whose confidentiality had already been compromised by other persons.
