September 16, 2024
According to the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) platform, the state of media freedom in Serbia has been “alarmingly bad” in the first six months of this year.
“The state of media freedom in Serbia is alarming, with verbal abuse accounting for the majority, or 63.2% of recorded incidents,” states the report for the first six months of the year, in which the MFRR recorded 38 alerts involving 51 individuals or media outlets.
The MFRR provides a detailed description of the case of Ana Lalić Hegediš and Dinko Gruhonjić, journalists and leaders of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina, who were “unprecedented targets” in terms of death threats.
“These two have received thousands of online death threats and threats from politicians. The situation worsened further when graffiti containing a direct death threat was written on the building where Gruhonjić resides with his family, while Ana Lalić Hegediš was insulted in the building where she lives,” explains the MFRR.
The report notes that, between January and April, journalists of Belgrade-based Television N1 reported four cases of online harassment, all of which included death threats. Death threats where also received at that time by journalists of Niš-based regional portal Južne Vesti [Southern News].
The latest monitoring includes detailed investigations of 756 violations of media freedom in Europe that was recorded by MFRR partners in the first half of 2024.
