Veran Matić: Why are you silent? 

Author: Veran Matić

In the production of this (para)state project, targets are drawn for well-known journalists, the most awarded research newsrooms and successful non-governmental organizations that represent top teams and individuals in their fields. 

The newsrooms in question are: BIRN (Balkan Investigative Reporting Network), KRIK (Crime and Corruption Research Network) and CRTA (Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability). 

They are symbols of investigative journalism and social activism and are often the only obstacle to the complete abolition of public interest and the controlling role of the public that resists omnipotence and systemic corruption. 

The media scene is shrinking every day, and journalists are physically attacked every day. The police ignore or even assist the bullies. The prosecutors were disempowered by the actively destructive actions of the profession, as well as by pressure from the executive branch and the president himself. The judiciary protects human rights and freedom of speech less and less, and openly sides with the opponents of achieved freedoms and guaranteed rights.

A symbol of this disorder is the lawsuit filed by Appellate Court judge Dušanka Djordjević and her husband, lawyer Aleksandar Djordjević, due to published true data about their assets, which they do not dispute, and which were collected from publicly available sources. This married couple is asking for a prison sentence of 10 months for the editor and the journalist and a multi-year ban on working in the profession, all because of the true facts presented in the “Judge Who Judges” database on this media’s website, which consists of data collected from publicly available sources and from the judges themselves. This drastic punishment, unprecedented in Europe, is requested with the accusation that the true data were placed in the context characterized by the description of this organization, namely the Network for Corruption and Crime Research. 

About us – KRIK

I believe that a lawsuit like this is inexplicable to the judge in this case and to the public, but it is not to us in the media: an influential judge, who was in the Appellate Panel that acquitted the accused for the murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija and, after two first-instance sentences of 100 years in prison for the four defendants, orders that journalists who question, who investigate, who have a different opinion, who also publish accurate facts, who are targeted by the government or who are rated as traitors, they should not exist. If they exist, then she will use her influence in the existing system to make them no longer exist. Prison sentences for the editor and journalist of KRIK and a ban on journalistic work for several years will destroy this newsroom. That is the goal, and the truth is a collateral damage. 

This unprecedented lawsuit, i.e. its essence, is followed by a government propaganda pamphlet against KRIK, BIRN and CRTA. In this pamphlet, Ištvan Kaić, as well as Judge Djordjević, claims that the problem is not the facts published by these media, they are correct, indisputable, “the problem is how these facts are used. And that is a room for manipulation… So, it’s not that they will tell a lie, but how they will use the true facts… Their rule is not to tell a lie in their research. But it is not forbidden to skip some truth… In order to establish what you want, with the conclusion you actually want to present.”

It seems somnambulistic, but it’s not. Times are changing. A former, very dangerous slogan for the government read: “If the facts don’t suit us, so much the worse for the facts.” Today, the focus is on those who bring relevant facts through investigative journalism. It is said that true facts are not the problem, but those who bring them to us are evil. Kill the messenger! It’s not just the movie “Kill the Messenger”, I already wrote about it Don’t Kill the Messenger! Nemoj ubiti glasnika!

This is also the mantra on which the government’s strategy is based on a daily basis, and this “piece of work” only defines that KRIK, BIRN and CRTA will be targets until they disappear. 

How banal sounds Kaić’s story about the conspiracy between BIRN and Vreme, which seemed to transmit investigative texts only because one of BIRN’s directors is the daughter of the late Dragoljub Žarković? How offensive is it in many ways, and that’s the point. Not facts, but to hurt and strike at the one who cannot defend oneself. Or hitting a woman, a female journalist. This is an unsuccessful attempt to delegitimize the success of this investigative newsroom, which has been quoted in the most reputable world media, with numerous domestic and international recognitions, by marketing the story that their texts are being transmitted through preferential treatment.

The BIRN journalist, Aleksa Tešić, who was educated on the problems that journalists face, concerning high-tech crime, and who exposed the illegal activities of the repressive apparatus, when it comes to the installation of spy software, eavesdropping and monitoring, is being “discredited” by saying that he was trained to expose the abuses of institutions such as BIA (Security Intelligence Agency), which, through the State Security, has a heavy legacy of crimes against journalists as well. 

Clearly, the research of Russian and Chinese malign influence, which in our reality has become more dominant than the European one, which we strive for, is also very disturbing to them. 

Bizarreness in the chapter on KRIK, packed with dramatic announcements that someone was seeing someone with the intention of collecting data for a database on politicians’ assets presents an instant hitting to the core. That bothers us. It hurts us. So much so that institutions are abused to cover up the illegal actions of politicians in power, to make criminal reports and court proceedings secret. With an attempt to include in the Law on Public Information and Media under the auspices of the European Commission a ban on journalistic research on the topic of corruption and illegal actions of those who are part of the government.

This was an attempt to react in order to ban data from Sky applications that are increasingly leading to the top of the government. So the program itself accuses the government and intelligence services of France, the Netherlands and Belgium. The representatives of the Media Department of the OSCE Mission in Serbia, who are true friends of professional and independent journalism, are also mentioned. Media Freedom and Development Department of the OSCE Mission represents the most competent team that has greatly contributed to the improvement of the legislative framework through support to the line ministry and the Government, as well as to the functioning of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists. Without the support of this department, the situation would be even worse. And someone seems to want it to be worse. Much worse. This mentioning is certainly also a message not to try too hard, because professional journalism in Serbia is undesirable. Just like independent institutions, regulatory bodies. 

Therefore, in the end, I turn to the question at the beginning of this text, to all those who have been mentioned with heavy accusations: Why are you silent? 

Silence is often understood as approval, which means that the repression against KRIK, BIRN, CRTA and other media and non-governmental organizations that are accused and attacked every day will only continue till their destruction. 

I believe that the European Union does not want its policy towards Serbia and its perspective of freedom to be called cynical and non-libertarian.