Press releases

23. 01. 2017.

UNS and DNKiM: RTK to Answer for Text Labeling Serbs as Russian Spies

The Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) and Journalists’ Association of Kosovo and Metohija (DNKiM) most strongly condemn the writings of the Kosovo public broadcaster Radio Television of Kosovo (RTK), which broadcast in the Albanian language an unsigned article insinuating that a “well-known Serbian journalist from Gracanica, Kosovo” with the initials B.N. is a Russian spy.

The text that calls on the Kosovo intelligence service reads that B.N. has been collecting funds from the Western countries present in Kosovo, and it also lists a number of names and last names of Serbs, who were accused of spying for Russia.

UNS and DNKiM request from that the Kosovo media community, professional associations, The Press Council to urgently react to such writings of the public broadcasting service, whose text was taken over by other Albanian media in Kosovo, too.

UNS and DNKiM expect from the OSCE Mission in Kosovo and other international representatives to issue public statements on such RTK writings, especially bearing in mind that the fake news broadcast by the public broadcaster RTK was a trigger for violence against the Serbs in March 2004, when it was reported that the Serbs were to blame for the drowning of two Albanian boys in the Ibar River in the north of Kosovo.

UNS and DNKiM stress that this type of writing is life threatening not only for the “well-known Serbian journalist B.N., but also for a group of people who were labeled, by photographs and names and surnames, as Russian spies without evidence.

UNS and DNKiM would like to remind that seven Serbian journalists and media workers disappeared and were killed in Kosovo and Metohija in the period from 1998 and 2000, and not a single perpetrator has been found to date and that EULEX and the Kosovo competent bodies have done nothing in investigating the cases. 

UNS and DNKiM believe that the public broadcaster of Kosovo has violated the professional standards by broadcasting the unsigned text in which a group of people was accused of espionage for Russia without evidence and thus their lives have been brought in danger.

UNS and DNKiM request that the text should be taken off the RTK internet sites and withdrawn from other media that reported it and that the professional organizations, courts of honor and the Press Council should declare their opinion about the editors’ responsibility for publishing such contents.