ANEM: Violence against N1 crew and police inaction unacceptable

A man attacked an N1 TV crew Thursday while they were filming near the Serbian Parliament and the so-called Caciland. According to N1, the assailant approached their team, demanded that they stop filming, and then took the camera, slamming it to the ground repeatedly. The police, who were nearby, did not respond to the incident but only approached when N1’s reported called them.

“When I received a call from the program director of N1 informing me about the attack, I went to the scene. In the meantime, I sent messages to the contact points at the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office, as well as to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At the scene, there were officers from the Intervention Unit who said they had informed the relevant authorities. After half an hour, the same representative from the Ministry of Internal Affairs approached a colleague from N1 with information that they had received a notification that there would be no investigation and that they had received such information from the prosecutor’s office. Since my colleagues from NUNS (Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia) and I repeated calls to the prosecutor’s office, officers from the Police Directorate for the City of Belgrade arrived and conducted an investigation. Subsequently, the prosecutor will make a decision regarding the continuation of investigative actions,” said Veran Matic, an operator on the SOS hotline for reporting threats and attacks on journalists, a member of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, and the chairman of the ANEM Board of Directors.

He added that he would not like to think this was an attempt to cover up the attack on the N1 TV crew in order to protect the assailant.

“It is unbelievable that everything happened in the presence of a large number of police officers who did not react, not even after the attack. The failure of the police to respond sends a message to every citizen that they will not be protected,” Matic noted.

According to ANEM’s records, this is the 17th incident in this area involving journalists in the past year, and in no case have the perpetrators been sanctioned.

ANEM calls on the relevant authorities to urgently resolve the recent case of the attack on the N1 crew, identify and sanction the perpetrator, in order to send a clear message to the public that violence against journalists and citizens cannot go unpunished.

“We also appeal to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to determine who among the police officers was present at the scene and did not react in a timely manner, and to appropriately sanction them. Impunity for attacks on media representatives sends a negative message that violence can be carried out freely and without obstruction, and it is particularly concerning the police's disregard, which is obligated to protect journalists in their workplace,” the Association said.

Since the beginning of this year, there has been a record number of threats, pressures, and physical attacks on media workers, and the relevant authorities have yet to show any willingness to stop the rising trend in this statistic.

ANEM urges journalists and media representatives to regularly report any form of endangerment to their safety while performing their duties. A free phone number and direct line of ANEM—0800 100 115—are available to all journalists, where media representatives can obtain explanations about the legal treatment of offenses and the procedures that need to be initiated to report safety endangerment to the relevant institutions, police, and prosecutor's office.