Journalist associations, media associations and trade unions held a protest in front of the Court of Appeal due to the acquittal of those accused of the murder of journalist and editor Slavko Ćuruvija.
With this gesture, the journalistic community condemns this type of attitude towards impunity in Serbia, but it also speaks of the unrest with verdicts like acquittal for the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija, said Veran Matić, president of the Commission for Investigating Murders of Journalists, before the protest of the Serbian media community.
Representatives of journalist associations, media associations and trade unions held a protest in front of the Court of Appeal in Belgrade due to the acquittal of those accused of the murder of journalist and editor Slavko Ćuruvija.
"Both journalists and citizens know the truth." We invite you to spend 25 minutes in silence for the 25 long years that we have been waiting for justice, but we have not received it. And to hold up the mirrors so that they can look at their reflection in our hands," said Ivana Stevanović from the "Slavko Ćuruvija" foundation in front of the Court of Appeal.
Journalists and media workers in front of the Appellate Court in Belgrade held high up mirrors, and some of them held a white flag with the inscription "You have killed justice, but the truth lives on."
In the call for protest, the associations reminded that twenty-five years after the murder ordered and organized by the state and nine years since the start of the trial, the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija remains an unpunished crime, and the citizens of Serbia remain without justice.
"They took our breath away. We are speechless. There are no more such words that we can address to the judiciary that has surrendered to force," the invitation to the event stated.
"I hope that the media and journalists will continue to investigate and find new evidence that will lead to a completely unique solution to the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija and prove what the public prosecutor tried to prove in this case and what has already been decided in two verdicts," he says Matić, explaining that twice the accused were sentenced to imprisonment for a total of 100 years.
The Court of Appeal in Belgrade is on February 2, 2024 announced the verdict adopted in April 2023, according to which all those accused of the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija were acquitted.
You must not give up.
"It is very important not to give up, neither in this case nor in other cases like the murder of Milan Pantić and Dada Vujasinović," said Matić.
He emphasized that the verdict showed that the obstruction of society's confrontation with the plagues of the 1990s, "especially the most violent ones, including the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija and other political murders, is at work."
"It is completely clear that this verdict protects the Security Service from that era." Therefore, there is not a single possibility that anyone from that period who managed the service will be convicted," explains Matić.
He adds that there is no departure from the nineties and the period of Slobodan Milošević's regime.
"We see that there is a lot of revisionism in various fields, and it is a worrying and dangerous trend for society. "Society in Serbia received a strong blow, as if they sent us back many years and as if we had to start all over again," Matić told "Vreme".
Journalism is in a big crisis and with security problems, and the verdict, according to Matić, must be read as a kind of danger that is coming towards journalists.
"It is necessary to create prevention mechanisms so that what happened to Slavko, Milan and Dada never happens again," concluded Matić.
Appeal Court verdict
The "Slavko Ćuruvija" foundation, the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia, the Independent Journalists' Association of Vojvodina, the Media Association, the Online Media Association, Local Press, the KUM Nezavisnost Trade Union, the Association of Independent Electronic Media and the Association of Serbian Journalists called for the protest.
The Appellate Court in Belgrade announced on Friday that it changed the first-instance verdict of the Special Department for Organized Crime of the High Court in Belgrade and acquitted four accused of murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija April 11, 1999 – Radomir Marković, Milan Radonjić, Ratko Romić and Miroslav Kurak.
Members of the former Department of State Security were previously found guilty twice by the Special Department for Organized Crime and sentenced to a total of 100 years in prison.
In March 2023, the main trial was held in front of the Court of Appeals, where the verdict for the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija passed in December 2021 was decided.
Then former officials and operatives of the State Security Service Radomir Marković, Milan Radonjić, Miroslav Kurak and Ratko Romić were sentenced to a total of one hundred years in prison.
The trial before the Appellate Court was held after the prosecution and defense filed an appeal against that verdict.
The Court of Appeal in Belgrade has already canceled the verdict of the Special Court once, in September 2020, and made a decision to repeat the trial.
Three journalists were killed in Serbia during the nineties and early 2000s.
Dada Vujasinović was found dead on April 8, 1994 in her apartment in Belgrade, and Milan Pantić was killed on June 11, 2001 in Jagodina.
Slavko Ćuruvija was killed on April 11, 1999 in the passage in front of the building where he lived.
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