2024. godina – Sumrak slobode novinara i medija u Srbiji (VIDEO)

Autor: Veran Matić, u nastavku se nalazi engleska verzija tekst (treba skrolovati); the English version of the text is provided below

Tužilaštvo za organizovani kriminal je, po drugi put, odbilo da preuzme istragu ubistva novinara Milana Pantića, čime se praktično minimiziraju mogućnosti da ovo ubistvo bude razrešeno, ni 24 godine nakon što je počinjeno.

Ove godine navršilo se i 30 godina od smrti Dade Vujasinović. Udruženje novinara Srbije navelo je da je nastupila apsolutna zastara za rešavanje ovog slučaja.

Navršeno je i 18 godina od pokušaja atentata na novinara Dejana Anastasijevića, bez nastavka istrage i kazne za počinioce.

Novinar Slaviša Milanov početkom godine neopravdano je priveden u prostorije policije u Pirotu i, dok je ispitivan, njegov telefon je otključan i eksportovani su svi podaci iz uređaja. Pored toga, instaliran je špijunski softver koji je omogućavao daljinsko praćenje svih aktivnosti ovog novinara. Iako je podignuta krivična prijava u martu 2024. godine, iako je laboratorija Amensti Internešenela ustanovila da se dogodilo hakovanje uređaja i instaliranje špijunskog softvera, iako je Selebrejt kompanija, koja proizvodi uređaje za otključavanje mobilnih uređaja i izvlačenje podataka, ustanovila da je bilo zloupotreba i uskratila licencu na dalje korišćenje softvera određenim institucijama u Srbiji, policija nije obavila istražne radnje na zahtev tužilaštva više od godinu dana.

Ove odluke bez presedana, na samom početku godine, najavile su tešku godinu za novinarke i novinare.

Usledili su fizički napadi, užasavajuće pretnje i uznemirujuće poruke, napadi na imovinu. Kako je rastao broj i intenzitet napada, smanjivala se efikasnost istražnih organa, policije i tužilaštava. Sudska praksa sve više je postajala zaštitnička u odnosu na moćnike koji tuže ili su tuženi, a sve manje zaštitnička za slobodu govora i kritičko i istraživačko novinarstvo.

Od 82 formirana predmeta u tužilaštvima u Srbiji tokom cele 2024. i u prva tri meseca 2025. godine – doneta je samo jedna osuđujuća presuda zbog pretnji ili napada na novinara.

Tužilaštva su najveći broj slučajeva rešavala odbačajem krivične prijave ili službenim beleškama da nema mesta pokretanju krivičnog postupka.

U više od polovine slučajeva (preko 40), policija nije obavila istražne radnje i nije prikupila i dostavila potrebna obaveštenja tužilaštvima.

U više slučajeva fizičkih napada na novinare, uključujući i napad na Vuka Cvijića, tužilaštvo je donelo odluku da nema mesta za gonjenje po službenoj dužnosti.

U dva slučaja pretnji novinarkama, posle podizanja optužnog predloga, sud je doneo odluku da optuženi čeka suđenje u kućnim uslovima sa nanogicom, iako je jedan od njih i državljanin Francuske, a drugi je, dok je bio maloletnik, izvršio ubistvo. U oba slučaja, optuženi su pobegli: prvi u Francusku, dok je drugi posle određenog vremena uhapšen. Napadnute novinarke dodatno su zabrinute za bezbednost, uz ovakvu nebrigu suda.

U navedenom periodu, fizički napadi na novinarke i novinare, dok obavljaju svoj posao, postali su uobičajeni. Po statistici iz Baze napada koju vodi NUNS, u 2024. godini bilo je 24 fizička napada, od čega samo u novembru i decembru – 19, a u prva četiri meseca 2025. – čak 14 fizičkih napada. Padom nadstrešnice na železničkoj stanici u Novom Sadu, ubistvom 16 građana i početkom protesta, počelo je ogoljeno nasilje prema novinarkama i novinarima koje eskalira iz dana u dan.

Nijedan fizički napad na novinare nije pravosudno sankcionisan. Nekažnjivost za napade i pretnje samo je ohrabrivala nasilnike.

Zbog svega toga, tokom 2024. godine, više novinarki i novinara moralo je da bude relocirano van zemlje zbog ugrožene bezbednosti, njih i članova porodica, i da angažuju privatno obezbeđenje, zbog policijskih procena da nisu ugroženi, iako okolnosti i zbivanja govore potpuno suprotno.

Više nego ikada, vodeći političari u izvršnoj i zakonodavnoj vlasti su targetirali novinare i medije, što je praćeno nezapamćenim permanentnim kampanjama u tabloidnim medijima. Napadi političara i tabloida stvaraju zapaljivu smešu koja proizvodi konstantne pretnje koje dobijaju novinari i mediji, putem direktnih poruka ili na društvenim mrežama, u komentarima na portalima. Uznemirujuće pretnje koje ugrožavaju bezbednost posebno su bile usmerene prema novinarkama, sa vrlo često jezivim seksističkim konotacijama.

Broj napada na novinarke u 2024. godini po prvi put je veći od broja napada na novinare i to postaje vrlo zabrinjavajući trend, jer je broj pretnji putem interneta prema novinarkama porastao na čak skoro 70 odsto.

Iako se medijska zajednica homogenizuje u borbi protiv napada na novinare, tokom 2024. godine dogodilo se dodatno ekonomsko siromašenje medija i novinara. Mediji su ostali bez važne podrške projektima koji se bave zaštitom javnog interesa, istraživačkim novinarstvom, iznenadnim prekidom aktivnosti Američke agencije za međunarodnu pomoć USAID (procene su da su mediji u proseku ostali bez 30 odsto prihoda, što je bitno uticalo na egzisteniciju).

Kroz projektno sufinansiranje, država i lokalne samouprave su nastavile preusmeravanje sredstava građana prema nepostojećim medijima, ili medijima koji su osnovani samo zbog izvlačenja budžetskog novca, ali najveći deo otišao je medijima koji su propagatori vlasti. Poražavajući su podaci o ogromnim količinama novca namenjenih odbrani javnog interesa, ranjivih grupa, manjina, a preusmerenih tabloidnim medijima, koji svakodnevno prozvode laži i služe kao batina u rukama vodećih politika i političara, svakodnevno krše kodekse ne samo bez sankcija, već su upravo oni redovno nagrađivani na konkursima za sufinansiranje.

Medijski javni servisi RTS i RTV finansirani su i od strane građana taksom sa gotovo stopostotnom naplatom, i iz budžeta. I pored toga, javni servisi su postali servisi vlasti, a ne građana, što je dovelo do brojnih protesta i blokada.

Iako je postojala zakonska obaveza da se raspiše konkurs za novi saziv Saveta Regulatornog tela za elektronske medije (REM), to se nije dogodilo, upravo kako bi se sprečilo neophodno regulisanje i sankcionisanje prvenstveno tabloidnih medija, koji svakodnevno krše zakone. Raspisivanje novog konkursa uvod je u još jedan pokušaj vlasti da izabere Savet REM-a koji bi predstavljao kontinuitet u podršci kršenjima zakona, pravilnika i kodeksa.

REM je važan i zbog toga što bez njega nema promena ni u medijskim javnim servisima Radio televiziji Srbije i Radio televiziji Vojvodine, jer upravo ovo telo, koje bi trebalo da bude nezavisno, treba da bira upravne odbore javnih servisa, koji onda biraju menadžment i urednike. Bez nezavisnog REM-a, sunovrat medija će se nastaviti. Sa kontrolisanim REM-om i javnim servisima, koncentracijom medija koji su oružje u rukama vlasti, nema ni mogućnosti za demokratske izbore i za promene koje bi normalizovale društvenu i medijsku scenu.

Nepostojanje REM-a koincidira sa opštim bezakonjem i napadima resornog ministra na Savet za štampu. Tokom 2024. sada već bivši Ministar za informisanje učestvovao je i u napadima na novinarku Tamaru Skrozzu i umesto da štiti novinare i medije, slobodu govora, postao je deo hajkačke mašinerije. Ministar je u potpunosti izjednačio profesionalna i kredibilna  udruženja novinara i asocijacije medija, sa GONGO udruženjima čime je naneta nemerljiva šteta, posebno kada je reč o potpunom urušavanju sistema projektnog sufinansiranja.

Novinari i mediji sve su češće mete SLAPP tužbi, kako bi se, naročito istraživački novinari i mediji, sprečili da izveštavaju, zastrašili ili jednostavno dugim sudskim postupcima iscrpljivali, uz pretnju finansijskim kaznama.

Najteži paradoksalni slučaj je tužba sudije i njenog supruga advokata protiv redakcije i novinara KRIK-a zbog objavljivanja javno dostupnih podataka o njihovoj imovini, sa nezabeleženim zahtevom da budu kažnjeni zatvorom i zabranom obavljanja novinarskog posla. Samo redakcija KRIK-a ima 19 aktuelnih SLAPP tužbi.

U procesu izmena Krivičnog zakonika nisu uvaženi predlozi novinarskih udruženja, koji bi omogućili bolju zaštitu novinara i medijskih radnika.

Najavljene izmene i dopune Zakona o javnom informisanju i medijima i Zakona o elektronskim medijima nije pratila javna rasprava, a predlog nacrta izmena Zakona o javnim medijskim servisima je oktroisan od strane ministra.

Studentski i građanski protesti neprestano pokazuju koliko su mediji važni za ozdravljenje društva i uspostavljanje pravne države, za kontrolu institucija i za ustanovljenje pravdenije funkcionalne demokratske države.

Represija prema nenasilnim demonstrantima sve češće se završava privođenjima i pritvorima, kao i krivičnim prijavama protiv onih koji kritički govore o stanju u društvu (najčešće zbog krivičnih dela izazivanje panike i nereda, pozivanje na nasilnu promenu ustavnog uređenja. Ovo je ozbiljan udarac na slobodu izražavanja. Među onima koji su izloženi nalaze se i novinari.

Ovaj pregled zbivanja i trendova jasno govori da je u toku proces potpunog ukidanja sloboda, uključujući i slobodu govora, i uništavanja profesionalnih, nezavisnih medija.

Iako su u analizama i izveštajima detektovali sve pomenute probleme, to nije pomoglo međunarodnim institucijama, u prvom redu Evropskoj komisiji, da bitnije utiču da se ovi problemi otklone. Sve je ostalo na preporukama, na koje se vlast ne obazire, ili daje obećanja koja uporno izigrava.

Solidarnost novinarki i novinara, i medija u Srbiji i regionu, na međunarodnom nivou, od životnog je značaja za opstanak slobodnih glasova i institucija.

Year 2024 – Twilight of freedom of journalists and media in Serbia 

At the beginning of 2024, the Court of Appeal acquitted the four accused for the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija, after two first-instance convictions for a total of 100 years in prison, after 15 years of investigation and nine years of court trial. 

The Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime has, for the second time, refused to take over the investigation into the murder of journalist Milan Pantić, which practically minimizes the possibility that this murder will be resolved, not even 24 years after it was committed. 

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Dada Vujasinović’s death. The Association of Journalists of Serbia stated that the absolute statute of limitations for resolving this case had expired. 

It has been 18 years since the attempted assassination of journalist Dejan Anastasijević, without the continuation of the investigation and punishment for the perpetrators. 

At the beginning of the year, journalist Slaviša Milanov was unjustifiably detained at the police station in Pirot, and while he was being interrogated, his phone was unlocked and all data from the device was sent. In addition, spyware was installed that enabled remote monitoring of all activities of this journalist. Although a criminal complaint was filed in March 2024, although the laboratory of Amnesty International established that device hacking and the installation of spyware had occurred, although the company Cellebrite, which produces devices for unlocking mobile devices and extracting data, established that there were abuses and denied the license for further use of the software to certain institutions in Serbia, the police did not carry out investigative actions at the request of the prosecution, for more than a year.

These unprecedented decisions, at the very beginning of the year, heralded a difficult year for journalists. 

This was followed by physical attacks, horrifying threats and disturbing messages, attacks on property. As the number and intensity of attacks increased, the effectiveness of investigative bodies, the police and prosecutor’s offices decreased. Jurisprudence became more and more protective in relation to the powerful who sue or are sued, and less and less protective of freedom of speech and critical and investigative journalism. 

Out of 82 cases filed in prosecutor’s offices in Serbia since the beginning of 2024, and in the first three months of 2025, only one conviction was handed down due to threats or attacks on a journalist.

Prosecutor’s offices solved the majority of cases by dismissing the criminal complaint or with official notes that there is no place to initiate criminal proceedings. 

In more than half of the cases (over 40), the police did not perform investigative actions and did not collect and submit the necessary information to the prosecutor’s offices. 

In several cases of physical attacks on journalists, including the attack on Vuk Cvijić, the prosecution made a decision that there was no room for ex officio prosecution. 

In two cases, due to threats to female journalists, after the indictment was filed, the court decided that the accused should await trial in home conditions with an electronic monitoring, even though one of them is a citizen of France, and the other committed murder when he was a minor. In both cases, the accused fled: the first to France, while the second was arrested after a certain time. The attacked female journalists are additionally worried about their safety, with such negligence of the court. 

In that period, physical attacks on journalists, while they were performing their job, became common. According to the statistics from the Attack Database maintained by NUNS, in 2024 there were 24 physical attacks, of which 19 were in November and December alone, and in the first four months of 2024 – as many as 14 physical attacks. With the fall of the canopy at the train station in Novi Sad, the killing of 16 citizens, and the beginning of the protest, the bare violence against journalists began, which escalates day by day. 

No physical attack on journalists has been judicially sanctioned. Impunity for attacks and threats only encouraged the bullies. 

Because of all this, during the year 2024, several journalists had to be relocated outside the country, due to the threatened safety of them and their family members, and to hire private security, due to police assessments that they are not threatened, although the circumstances and events say the complete opposite. 

More than ever, leading politicians in the executive and legislative branches have targeted journalists and the media, which has been accompanied by unprecedented permanent campaigns in the tabloid media. Attacks by politicians and tabloids create an incendiary mixture, which produces constant threats received by journalists and the media, through direct messages, or on social networks, in comments on portals. Disturbing security threats have been particularly directed at female journalists, often with horrible sexist connotations. 

The number of attacks on female journalists in 2024 for the first time is higher than the number of attacks on journalists, and this is becoming a very worrying trend, because the number of threats against female journalists is almost 70 percent via the Internet. 

Although the media community is homogenizing in the fight against attacks on journalists, during 2024, an additional economic impoverishment of the media and journalists took place. The media were left without important support for projects dealing with the protection of the public interest, investigative journalism, due to the sudden interruption of the activities of the American Agency for International Aid USAID (estimates are that the media were left without an average of 30 percent of income, which had a significant impact on existence).

Through project co-financing, the state and local self-governments continued redirecting citizens’ funds towards non-existent media, or media that were founded only to extract budget money, but the largest part went to media that are propagators of the government. There are devastating data on huge amounts of money that should be in the service of defending the public interest, vulnerable groups, minorities, which are instead being diverted towards the tabloid media, which daily produce lies and serve as a whip in the hands of leading politicians, who daily violate the codes, not only without being sanctioned, but being regularly awarded in competitions for co-financing. 

Public media broadcasters RTS and RTV are financed both by citizens with a tax with almost one hundred percent collection, and from the budget. In addition, public broadcasters have become the services of the government, not citizens, which has led to numerous protests and lockouts. 

Although there was a legal obligation to announce a competition for a new convocation of the Council of the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM), this did not happen, precisely in order to prevent the necessary regulation and sanctioning of primarily tabloid media, which violate the laws every day. The announcement of a new competition is a prelude to another attempt by the authorities to elect the Council of REM, which would represent continuity in support of violations of laws, regulations and codes. 

REM is also important because without it there are no changes in the public media broadcasters Radio Television of Serbia and Radio Television of Vojvodina, because this body, which should be independent, elects the management boards of public broadcasters, which then choose management and editors. Without an independent REM, the media devastation will continue. With the controlled REM and public broadcasters, the concentration of media that are weapons in the hands of the authorities, there is no possibility for democratic elections and for changes that would normalize the social and media scene. 

The absence of REM coincides with general lawlessness and attacks by the relevant minister on the Press Council. The Minister of Information also participates in the attacks on journalist Tamara Skrozza, and instead of protecting journalists and the media, freedom of speech, he becomes part of the harassment machinery. The minister has completely equated professional and credible associations of journalists and media associations with GONGO associations, which caused immeasurable damage, especially when it comes to the complete collapse of the project financing system. 

Journalists and the media are increasingly the targets of SLAPP lawsuits, in order to prevent investigative journalists and the media from reporting, intimidate or simply exhaust them with long court proceedings, with the threat of financial penalties. 

The most difficult paradoxical case is the lawsuit filed by the judge and her husband, the lawyer, against the editors and journalists of KRIK for publishing publicly available information about their assets, with an unrecorded request that they be punished by prison and banned from performing journalistic work. (KRIK alone has 19 current SLAPP lawsuits). 

In the process of amending the Criminal Code, the proposals of journalist associations, which would enable better protection of journalists and media workers, were not taken into account. 

The announced amendments to the Law on Public Information and Media and the Law on Electronic Media were not followed by a public debate, and the draft amendment to the Law on Public Media Broadcasters was approved by the Minister. 

Student and civil protests are increasingly showing how important the media are for the healing of society and the establishment of the rule of law, for the control of institutions, and for the establishment of a more just and functioning democratic state. 

Repression against non-violent protesters increasingly ends with arrests and detentions, as well as criminal charges against those who speak critically about the state of society (most often for criminal acts of causing panic and riots, calling for a violent change of the constitutional order. This is a serious blow to freedom of expression. Among those exposed are journalists. 

This overview of events and trends clearly shows that the process of complete abolition of freedoms, including freedom of speech, and the destruction of professional, independent media is underway. 

Although they detected all the mentioned problems in the analyzes and reports, it did not help the international institutions, first of all the European Commission, to significantly influence the elimination of these problems. Everything else is based on recommendations, which the government does not pay attention to, or makes promises that it persistently fails to fulfill. 

The solidarity of male and female journalists, and the media in Serbia and in the region, at the international level, is of vital importance for the survival of free voices and institutions.