Matić: Vučić’s statement is intimidation, an attempt to prevent me defending journalists from threats and attacks

Author: Perica Gunjić, Source: Cenzolovka

The campaign against the president of the Association of Independent Electronic Media, Veran Matić, which has been run by the pro-regime media for some time, continued last night on the national television Pink, in the program Hit Tweet, in which the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, was a guest.

To the comment of host Verica Bradić about the tweeter Marko Marjanović (known as Kristal Matt Damon, who has been in digital prison for three months , he was banned from posting on the networks after he published the phone numbers of Ana Brnabić and RTS journalists), Aleksandar Vučić responded:

“If someone had done that with the N1 journalist or Veran Matić, he would have been detained and imprisoned or shot directly.”

The presenter pointed out that “it is even more interesting that Mr. Veran Matić came to his defense.”

“Oh, is it possible,” Vučić commented.

“(Matić) claims that he (Marjanović) should be released from that digital detention, even though Matić, who is the head of the Association of Independent Electronic Media, should stand up for the protection of his colleagues. Where did Mr. Matić’s change of mind come from?”, the host asks the president, and he answers:

“Because with them, there is nothing to do with honor and truth. It doesn’t matter which of them you are talking about. You see, it would be good if those who were arrested, detained and convicted because of Veran Matić, to have it erased from their records – if he is so nice to people – and to be as if they were never punished. And to take a whiskey or a bottle of wine to their house and apologize for the fact that people were imprisoned because of him, they are not to blame nor obliged. How does it sound to you?”

Vučić added:

“That’s their double standards. If he’s on our side, he can kill people, that’s how they see it. And if he’s not on our side, he can’t even catch a fly, he’s guilty and responsible. But we live in such a time.”

According to Vučić, it is a time when “shame retreated before ignorance, when knowledge retreated before arrogance, and in which we have to oppose them. We have to resist them in every place, with every word, with every deed, to prevent them from destroying our country.”

Who is it really about?

Vučić did not clarify who he means when he says that they were “arrested, detained and convicted because of Veran Matić”, but it is possible to connect it only with Milan Radonjić and Ratko Romić, former officials of the Department of State Security, who were twice convicted in the first instance for the murder of the journalist Slavko Ćuruvija, and then acquitted last year.

The two, as well as their lawyers, repeatedly blamed Matić, that is, the Commission for the Investigation of Murders of Journalists, which he headed, for influencing the trial for the murder of Ćuruvija, which lasted nine years.

The other two accused and acquitted for the murder of the journalist, former RDB chief Radomir Marković and RDB reserve member Miroslav Kurak, do not fit the president’s description – the first is in prison for other crimes, and the second was on the run during the trial.

MATIĆ ASKED THE POLICE TO ASSESS HIS SECURITY AFTER VUČIĆ’S STATEMENT

Veran Matić told Cenzolovka that “the president’s statement is in the spirit of the tabloids and on the trail of the defendants’ defense attorneys, as well as the defendants themselves, who often blamed me for the fact that the prosecutor filed an indictment against them, the judges confirmed the indictment, and other judges ruled.”

“I understand this statement by the president as a kind of green light for all those accused and convicted in cases of attacks on journalists or murders of journalists to turn to me so that I can pay for the time they spent in detention and prison. I interpret this statement from the highest place in the country as intimidation and an attempt to stop actively defending all journalists who are threatened, attacked or unjustly tried.”

Matić says that after the president’s statement, he officially requested a personal security assessment from the police, since he was already in a similar situation, when he was under police protection 24 hours a day for six years.

“Even though I don’t have excessive expectations from the aforementioned assessment, I want to leave a written record of the initiative to assess my personal safety,” he says and adds that the solidarity of endangered journalists and media, as well as all defenders of freedom of speech, opinion, assembly and free non-violent political action, has never been more important.

“If that doesn’t happen, then there won’t be any basic freedoms for citizens of this country, journalists, media, let alone democracy,” says Matić.

Vučić 2024: The verdict for Ćuruvija is a great injustice and terribly bad for Serbia

Vučić said only a year and a half ago, when those accused of murdering Ćuruvija were acquitted:

“A difficult situation, very unpleasant, terrible for us,” he said on February 5 last year , adding that “if he believed in conspiracy theories, he would not rule out that this is another step in the overthrow of the government.” The verdict is “a great injustice and a terribly bad thing for Serbia, its legal system, as well as a bad message for everyone involved in journalism.”

As the Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Serbia, in 2013 he said that he would resign if the journalist’s murder was not resolved, claiming that ” the state liquidated Ćuruvija “. He supported this trial, promising that the state would face the crimes committed by its members.

Vučić, who came to power promising to solve the murders of journalists, supported the work of the Commission for Investigating Murders of Journalists in 2013 and attended its meeting .

He, who is now accusing Matić of the arrests and trials, actively supported the investigation into the murder of Ćuruvija and the trial, saying that “a man was killed in a criminal manner and the state should do everything to find those responsible and punish them.”

He forgets that in 2015, when he asked Veran Matić to get involved in the process of elucidating the murder of the three Bitiqi brothers, he said that “Matić has shown serious results so far, and in the case of the murder of Slavko Ćuruvija, he managed to encourage a significant number of people to cooperate and work together.”

In August 2018, Vučić appointed Matić as his special envoy to resolve the issue of missing persons with Croatia.

SHOULD MATIĆ APOLOGIZE TO KANTAR AS WELL?

Dejan Nikolić Kantar is also in prison, a thug and owner of countless casinos in Vranje and the surrounding area, who during the trial for threatening the employees of OK Radio, in the courtroom, in front of the judge, threatened the journalists present , among whom was Matić.

Because of his involvement in this case, the president of ANEM became the target of an attack by Dejan Nikolić Kantar, who also sent a criminal complaint against him from prison.

During Nikolic’s trial, Matić appeared on wanted posters in Vranje, and several hundred people appeared in front of the court wearing T-shirts that read: “Justice for Kantar, Vučić help.”

Matić has publicly emphasized on several occasions that the case of Nikolić’s trial is a great test for the judiciary in Serbia and that the state must react decisively and efficiently in order to protect journalists and citizens from thugs. He also spoke about the disappearance of court files during the trial, obstructions, pressures, as well as the threats to journalists and employees of OK Radio in Vranje.

The text was transferred from the Cenzolovka.