Associations journalists and media organizations invite citizens to attend on Wednesday, April 1, at 10:30 a.m gather at the Presidency building in Kralja Milana Street, at a protest against attacks on journalists that were recorded on March 29, during local elections in ten municipalities and cities across Serbia, NUNS announced.
The organizers point out that the aim of the protest is to express solidarity with colleagues who were attacked while performing their professional work in the public interest, but also to draw attention to the increasingly difficult and dangerous position of media workers in the country. In the last year and a half, they say, there has been a continuous increase in pressure, threats and physical attacks on journalists, and the events during the election day represent the culmination of this process, when some journalists were directly threatened with their lives.
"Attacks on journalists are not isolated incidents, but a systematic attack on the public's right to know. A society in which journalists become targets of violence is not a free society, but an area of fear and unpunished violence," the organizers' invitation states.
The protest starts at 10:30 a.m., the time when the first attack took place, and citizens are invited to show solidarity and support for their colleagues. The organizers also invite people from other cities to gather at the same time in the places they determine, in order to clearly express their unity in defense of free and safe journalism.
"The safety of journalists must be the absolute priority of every democratic society. Professional journalism and the truth are endangered where fear reigns and those who seek it are silenced by force. That's why we stand by them - loud and clear," the NUNS statement concludes.
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