Serbia again drops on RSF World Press Freedom Index

Serbia’s deterioration has continued as last year it was ranked 91st, and 79th in the 2022 Index.

This year’s report says that Serbia has changed categories, moving from the “problematic” (3rd category out of 5) to the “difficult” zone (4th category) for press freedom.

The growing nationalism in the region has had a negative impact on press freedom in the whole region. In Serbia, the ruling party and the pro-government outlets have stepped up the attacks on independent journalism, said RSF. It also highlights Russia’s influence. “Kremlin influence has reached as far as Serbia (down seven at 98th), where pro-government media carry Russian propaganda and the authorities threaten Russian exile journalists,” reads the report.

In the context of the tensions with Serbia, journalists in Kosovo have suffered numerous physical assaults and the government in Pristina has put undue pressure on both the private and public media.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska, whose nationalistic president regularly attacks journalists, recriminalised defamation and is discussing a “foreign agents” law targeting also media, said the RSF.

Even in the two countries performing the best in the region, North Macedonia and Montenegro, press freedom was undermined in 2023 by political and judicial pressures on the media, said Reporters Without Borders.

“Growing number of governments not guarantors of best environment for journalists”

A growing number of governments and political authorities are not fulfilling their role as guarantors of the best possible environment for journalism and for the public's right to reliable, independent, and diverse news and information, said RSF.

This year’s World Press Freedom Index shows that political interests stifle journalism in several countries that are candidates for EU membership (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Turkey, Serbia). They continue to imprison journalists and undermine the media by means of online censorship and its control of the judiciary, it said.

RSF sees a worrying decline in support and respect for media autonomy and an increase in pressure from the state or other political actors. Press freedom around the world is being threatened by the very people who should be its guarantors – political authorities, it said.

“States and other political forces are playing a decreasing role in protecting press freedom. This disempowerment sometimes goes hand in hand with more hostile actions that undermine the role of journalists, or even instrumentalise the media through campaigns of harassment or disinformation. Journalism worthy of that name is, on the contrary, a necessary condition for any democratic system and the exercise of political freedoms,” said Anne Bocande, RSF editorial director.

“Toxic Kremlin influence”

The situation has suffered an overall decline in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where press freedom is not guaranteed and the media are increasingly used as transmission belts for disinformation campaigns.

The Russian state (162nd) has pursued its “crusade" against independent journalism, while more than 1,500 journalists have fled abroad since the invasion of Ukraine, reads the report.

Russia’s two-place rise in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index, due to other countries falling, obscures a fall in its global score as the list of journalists and media branded as “foreign agents” or “undesirable” has lengthened and journalists continue to be jailed arbitrarily, it said.

The two rivals for the region’s lowest ranking are Belarus (167th), whose government persecutes journalists on the pretext of combatting “extremism”, and Turkmenistan (175th), whose president has unlimited power and bans all independent reporting.

One of the Index’s surprises is the 18-place jump by Ukraine (61st) due to improvements in both its security indicator – fewer journalists killed – and its political one. Although the rule of law has not been enforced over the entire country since the Russian invasion, which has prevented the Ukrainian authorities from guaranteeing press freedom in the occupied territories, political interference in free Ukraine has fallen.