Press releases

02. 11. 2018.

Nine out of Ten Attacks on Journalists Remain Unpunished

On the occasion of 2 November, the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) regrets to say that the largest number of those responsible for attacks on journalists and media workers in Serbia have not been punished or no investigation whatsoever has been initiated against them.

UNS supports the initiative of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) that the United Nations should adopt the Convention for Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals. 

UNS supports the work of the Commission for Investigation of Murders of Journalists and considers it instrumental in bringing about the trial to the accused for the murder of Slavko Curuvija, collection of evidence in the case of the murder of Milan Pantic and work in shedding light to the circumstances of Dada Vujasinovic’s death.

UNS reminds that as many as 39 journalists and media workers who worked for the Serbian newsroom offices, including Slavko Curuvija, Milan Pantic, Dada Vujasinovic and victims of the bombing of RTS, were killed, kidnapped, disappeared or died under unknown circumstances in the period from 1991 to the end of 2001.

Altogether 14 journalists and media workers were killed and went missing only in Kosovo and Metohija from August 1998 to September 2005 and their murderers and kidnappers were not found in a single case.

UNS points out that not even after 11 years from the attempted murder of the “Vreme” journalist Dejan Anastasijevic were those responsible for it found and punished. Attackers on Ivan Ninic have not been found over three years either as well as the responsible for the beating of the editor of FoNet Davor Pasalic in 2014.

According to the statistics of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) over 600 journalists have been killed in the last six years.  Nine out of ten cases of attacks on journalists remain unpunished. Hundreds of journalists are in prison, and journalists have been attacked, beaten, detained, harassed and threatened on a daily basis. All this prompted the International Federation of Journalists to launch a campaign that the United Nations should pass the international convention that would be dedicated to protection of journalists and media professionals”, IFJ says.

Let us remind that the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights in the United Nations General Assembly adopted a proposal on 18 December 2013 that 2 November should be declared the International Day for the Protection of Journalists. On this day in 2013, journalists of the French Radio France International Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon were killed in Mali.