ANEM ALERT: Attack on Journalist and ANEM Board Chairman Veran Matić

Izvor: ANEM

Matić was attacked while using his mobile phone to record a public gathering of several dozen citizens wearing hats with white bands. Although the reason for the gathering was unknown to him, he assessed that it was an event of public interest and therefore took several photographs and video recordings for the purpose of informing the public about it.

As he was walking toward the stairs leading to the main entrance of the National Assembly, he was approached by an unidentified man in his twenties who violently snatched the phone from his hand in order to prevent him from filming. When Matić told him that he was a journalist and demanded that the phone be returned, the man ignored him. The phone was returned only after an order to do so was given by a man whom Matić knows as the former leader of the Alkatraz supporters’ group and one of those convicted for participation in the murder of French football fan Brice Taton in 2009. The man in question was Djordje Prelić, known as Prela.

In a brief conversation, Prelić told Matić that his reporting on TV B92 had ruined his life. Matić believes that he was referring to the investigative television series Insider, which was once broadcast on that station.

After recovering his phone, Matić approached security personnel present in the National Assembly building. A security officer told him that he had not noticed the incident and advised him to report the case to the police.

The incident was reported to the Stari Grad Police Station in Majke Jevrosime Street.

The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) expresses deep concern for the safety of Veran Matić and demands an urgent response from the competent institutions. ANEM emphasizes that Matić has for months been the target of a sinister campaign initiated by the President of the Republic of Serbia with the following statement:

“It would be good if those who were arrested, detained and convicted because of Veran Matić had that removed from their records — if he is so kind to people — and if it were as though they had never been punished. And he should personally bring them a bottle of whisky or wine and apologize for the fact that they served prison sentences because of him, despite being innocent.”

The President’s proposal and call were further elaborated in the purported documentary film “Evil Times 2: The Birth of Propaganda”, produced by the Center for Social Stability. Through that repeatedly broadcast film, as well as articles and media posts in which Matić is professionally and personally discredited through false accusations that he is a foreign agent, a traitor to his country, and a misappropriator of enormous sums of money, his safety has been placed under increasing threat. A criminal complaint was filed with the competent prosecutor’s office, but it has received no response.

ANEM reminds the public of the dangers facing Matić and stresses that this attack must not be viewed outside the context of the prolonged campaign being waged against him. Serbia has long been a country in which journalists are judged and sentenced in the dark.