OSCE's Désir extremely worried about N1's removal from Telekom Srbija offer

At the beginning of the year, cable operators stopped distributing N1 TV, known by its independent reporting and the decision was explained with the  Telekom Srbija economic dispute with the United Media, the owner of N1 and media provider, the OSCE statement said.

"I'm worried about the latest development in the dispute between Telekom Srbija and the United Media. It is crucial to offer people unobstructed access to information, to save the media diversity in the country and preserve the role of independent and critical media," Désir said.

He recalled that N1 reporters had been exposed to threats and physical attacks, while its website was under repeated cyber attacks."

 "At this point when the media and journalism are attacked, there is an urgent need to produce good media content available to people, and state should promote the diversity of the media environment," Désir said.

He added that pluralism and accurate information were of vital importance for people to make decisions about their participation in the democratic processes, including elections.

Telekom Srbija, the statement says, is a shareholder company with the state's majority stake.

For two weeks already, some million Serbia's people can't decide will they watch N1 TV programmes, the only specialised news channel and one of a few media in Serbia which critically reports about the regime, via state cable operators, Insajder said.

The failure to reach a new commercial agreement between the state-owned Telekom and private United Media company which N1 is a part of exceeds business relations and opens many questions – first, but not the only one - the politicisation of the media sphere and the lack of media freedom. That problem is by far more significant than the current conflict of the two operators, according to Insajder.