Press releases

18. 03. 2024.

UNS and DNKiM: Authors of Repeated Lies that Was the Trigger of the March Pogrom of Serbs in Kosovo And Metohija to Be Held Accountable

The Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) with its branch the Association of Journalists of Kosovo and Metohija (DNKiM) is strongly protesting against the reporting of the website of the Radio-Television of Kosovo (RTK) in Serbian language, which has falsified the facts and inaccurately informed the public about the facts of the event, known as the March pogrom in the international public.

UNS and DNKiM demand the immediate removal of yesterday’s information in which RTK as soon as in the second sentence repeated the false news from 20 years ago that three Albanian boys had drowned in the Ibar River “while running away from a group of Serbian youths”.

UNS and DNKiM warn that this very sentence was a trigger for the outbreak of violence in which innocent people were killed, 39 churches and monasteries were burned down as well as villages and urban areas, over 900 Serbs were beaten and mistreated and about 4,000 of them expelled.

UNS and DNKiM remind that all the international organizations have condemned such reporting by RTK and at the time, the Public Service of Kosovo received 100,000 EUR to improve its editorial capacities.

The news that was yesterday broadcast on RTK is to a large degree a rewritten news from 20 years ago and it carries along not only the risk of tragic consequences for the entire area, but also an obvious attempt to revise the history of this event.

The yesterday’s information does not state whose houses and religious facilities were burned but emphasizes the untruth that “Serbs retaliated by doing the same with the Albanian houses”.

UNS and DNKiM point out that this information violates all the professional norms, and they demand an urgent reaction of the local regulatory bodies and international organizations because such reporting directly threatens the safety of the entire community and incites, encourages and absolves the perpetrators of one of the most tragic events in our modern history.