Tasovac: Media freedom is under no threat in Serbia

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister of Culture and Information Ivan Tasovac said Monday that there was no jeopardizing press freedom in Serbia, despite recent allegations by the OSCE Mission to Serbia that media contents were being censored in the country.

Tasovac told a meeting of the Serbian parliament’s Culture and Information Committee that prior to the publication of its statement, the OSCE Mission had not addressed any institution of state, and he himself did not know anything about websites being taken down.

He said he believed that the closure of sites could have been caused by technical reasons and such cases could not have anything to do with any state-level decisions.

Tasovac expressed confidence that the upcoming approval of three media bills would help better regulate that area.
The minister said that final consultations on the bills were underway and they should start being discussed in the parliament at the end of July.

The censorship issue discussion has been launched by Vesna Marjanovic, committee chairperson and member of the opposition Democratic Party (DS), who, stressing that she spoke on her own behalf, said that media freedoms were endangered in Serbia and the country did not need any “hassles with international institutions.”

She expressed great concern over the taking down of websites and urged lawmakers to act as it “causes worries about possible limiting of freedoms of expression on the Internet.”

After last night’s broadcast, by a national coverage television, of two shows where the prime minister and the government came under sharp criticism, Milorad Cvetanovic and Vladimir Djukanovic, MPs for the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), the central party in the ruling...