Unite for Freedom, BIRN Media Debate Hears

BIRN Serbia and Human Right House organised the first in a series of debates on media freedom on Thursday in Belgrade's Media Centre.

One of the messages from the debate that gathered more then 50 people, including journalists, NGO activists and representatives of embassies, is the need for journalists, NGOs and citizens to connect and join forces in the fight for human rights and media freedom.

The debate was staged in the aftermath of the campaign launched against BIRN by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic after the organisation published an investigation on January 8 published a report on the controversial tender to de-water Tamnava mine.

Jovana Gligorijevic, from the weekly magazine Vreme, the only outlet to republish the BIRN investigation in full, said that the pressures had started even before the story was out.

"While the article was still being drafted, we received a phone call and it sounded like this: We heard that those people of yours [BIRN Serbia] are writing about this topic; if you publish it, we'll sue you," Gligorijevic said.

Gordana Igric, BIRN regional director, said the campaign against BIRN revealed the scale of the pressure on media freedom in Serbia.

In two first weeks of the campaign, she recalled, while the media reported on BIRN 294 times, BIRN had been contacted only 11 times to give statements and answer accusations or provide explanations of the story. None of the mainstream media contacted BIRN.

"That does not mean that media don't want to report, but that they are completely hemmed in by an economically devastated country," Igric stated, sourcing one of the main problems in the difficult financial situation of both media outlets and journalists.

"We need a coalition in the...