Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) she asked the ODIHR observation mission to pay special attention to attacks and pressures on journalists during the election campaign.
ANEM states that journalists are at the meeting Serbian Progressive Party in Novi Sad were exposed to physical attacks, harassment and checks by plainclothes police officers.
The president of ANEM and member of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, Veran Matiฤ, assessed that the violence against journalists and the prevention of their work are part of a broader strategy of intimidating citizens and discouraging them from going to the polls.
Matiฤ invited observers KOSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to monitor daily attacks on journalists, warning that this creates an atmosphere of fear instead of conditions for fair and democratic elections.
According to ANEM, the reporter of the Maลกina portal and the editor of the Razglas news portal ลฝarko Bogosavljeviฤ were subjected to physical attacks, while plainclothes policemen singled out an associate of the Pazovacka portal, searched his backpack and photographed his identity card.
Bogosavljeviฤ told ANEM that while reporting on the organized arrival of a bus in Novi Sad, an unknown man approached him, swore at him several times and asked why he was filming, and then hit his phone. When he went towards the police officers of the intervention unit to report the attack, the man walked away, the editor of Razglas News said.
An associate of the Pazovacka portal said that men in civilian clothes showed him a badge, took him to a side street, asked for his ID card and photographed both sides of it, and then searched his backpack.
ANEM also states that former Serbian President Aleksandar Vuฤiฤ's security guard roughly pushed journalist Maลกina away when she asked him if he pardoned the accused in the case of the fall of the canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad.
The association specifically pointed out that the majority of independent journalists who reported from the meeting refused to wear journalist badges and prominently displayed credentials because, according to the organization, they did not feel safe.
ANEM assesses that SNS pre-election rallies have become places of risk for independent journalists, who, as it states, face physical and verbal attacks, harassment, damage to equipment and insults.
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