May 16, 2022
The Office of the Basic Public Prosecutor in Zrenjanin has rejected criminal charges filed by TV N1 journalist Ksenija Pavkov against Chinese citizen Chen Pengui, manager of the Zrenjanin factory of Chinese tyre maker Linglong, who blocked a vehicle of this television company from accessing a road and took photos of its license plates.
The incident occurred after an N1 team arrived in Zrenjanin to report on the tough living conditions endured by Vietnamese workers building the Linglong tyre factory.
The charge, filed late last November by journalist Ksenija Pavkov and cameraman Aleksandar Milanović, is for endangering their safety and violating their right to freedom of speech and public expression.
The prosecution nonetheless rejected the charge, determining that the suspect merely “spoke to someone on a telephone and, after ending his conversation, took photographs of the license plates of the passenger vehicle” carrying the N1 team, before leaving the scene.
TV N1 has announced that it will appeal the prosecution’s decision. The Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina also released a statement calling the decision absurd and indicative that laws don’t apply to certain people in Serbia.
