KRIK

In Serbia, independent journalism still targeted

Media freedom remains a dilemma affecting the lives and work of hundreds of journalists in Serbia. Smear campaigns, online threats and other attempts to demonise independent media outlets are a consistent trend and a grim reality in Serbia's digital environment.

Several pro-government tabloids on Friday ran front pages linking the widely respected investigative media portal KRIK to a brutal gang whose key members have been arrested and charged with murder, torture and drug trafficking.

The Stockhold-based international human rights organisation, Civil Rights Defenders, has condemned what it called "the shameless campaign of the Serbian pro-government tabloid media" against a Serbian investigative media portal, Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, KRIK.

Slobodan Georgiev. Photo: Belgrade Media Centre.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network called on the Serbian police and prosecution on Thursday to take action after BIRN Serbia editor Slobodan Georgiev was vilified in an online video.

Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin's Movement of Socialists party lashed out after KRIK published a report on Monday alleging that Vulin bought an apartment in Belgrade under suspicious circumstances with money he had borrowed from his wife's aunt in Canada.

About 40 journalists from the informal organization "Journalists Network" have called on colleagues throughout former Yugoslavia to show solidarity with the Serbian journalists being targeted by Serbia's pro-government media.