The SafeJournalists network and the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS), as part of this network, and the Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) condemned the threats to the editorial staff of the N1 portal, which came in comments on the website.
The Association of Journalists of Serbia (UNS) today asked the authorities to reveal and punish those responsible for the threats sent to N1 journalists after the publication of the article about the stay of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in the USA on the occasion of the UN Security Council session on Kosovo.
An appeal to the competent institutions to urgently react and solve this case was sent by the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS), and the SafeJournalists network, which represents media professionals in the Western Balkans, joined its member NUNS and called on the authorities to find and sanction the person as soon as possible. that sent threats and to send a clear message that they stand in the protection of journalists.
The SafeJournalists network will inform relevant national and international stakeholders, because any attack on journalists is an attack on public interest, democracy and the rights of all citizens, the statement added.
N1 program director Igor Božić told UNS that on Thursday, the N1 newsroom received threats in a comment on a video attachment and a text about the stay of the President of Serbia in America on the occasion of the UN Security Council session on Kosovo.
According to Božić, the journalists of N1 were threatened “that they will soon be liquidated, neutralized and that nothing will be left of them”. The editorial called the “worst gang”, “traitors paid by foreign powers”, and in the comment it was also written that “they have been publicly speaking out against the Serbian people and the government for a long time”.
The comment also states that “there are more villains” and mentions the media Nova S and Danas, Božić said and added that they immediately reported the threats to the Prosecutor’s Office for High-Tech Crime.
“They called us today from the Prosecutor’s Office and informed us that they are carrying out procedures related to the application. This is not the first time that the N1 newsroom has received such threats, a similar case happened a few weeks ago when we published the news about the discovery of a marijuana plantation in the north of Kosovo. And then we informed the Prosecutor’s Office, but until today we have not received any feedback,” said Božić.
He added that the moderators of the N1 site noticed the comments that arrived last night, but that the editorial office did not publish them.
The association called on the Prosecutor’s Office for High-Tech Crime to take the death threats received by N1 journalists seriously and quickly find those responsible, stressing that intimidation and threats to journalists are unacceptable and that the perpetrators of such verbal attacks must be held accountable.
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