The Coalition for Media Freedom and the CRTA democracy watchdog NGO initiated a petition calling the Serbian government and parliament to urgently amend the draft media laws being debated by MPs.
A press release for the petition said that the two organizations “are calling journalists, media staff, associations and the entire public to sign the petition calling the government and MPs to urgently amend the laws”.
“The Serbian Parliament will shortly vote on changes to the Law on Public Information and the Media and Law on Electronic Media. Although the new laws should promote the independence of the media in Serbia, those draft laws which were adopted by the Serbian government, include three disputed crucial articles that annul the positive changes,” the press release said.
It added that the new laws allow the state-owned Telekom Serbia to set and buy media outlets enabling even stronger state control over information providing for the public and the media market.
“The new laws do not oblige the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM) to act on complaints from the public and that body can turn a blind eye to violations of all rules of the profession and the spread of violence in the interest of big media outlets who are answerable to no one.
“The new laws do not solve the problem of abuse of state institutions and their function in election campaigns nor did they oblige the REM to monitor how much and how the state president and government, minister and other public officials appear in the most viewed media during campaigns and inform the public about that,” it said.
The two organizations also demanded the immediate removal of the articles of the two draft laws which allow Telekom Serbia to own media outlets and the immediate addition of articles which allow judiciary and civic control of the REM on complaints and articles which limit campaigns by public officials and define criteria and methods for the REM to monitor reporting during election campaigns.
“Although officials of the Ministry of Information and Telecommunication, the Prime Minister and ruling party MPs have been constantly claiming that the two draft media laws have the support of everyone involved in the process, the Coalition for Media Freedom and CRTA remain firm in their view that the three key points can cause unforeseeable consequences to freedom of expression in the Republic of Serbia and annul all improved solutions included in those laws,” the press release said.