August 1, 2023
According to an announcement from the regular quarterly session of the Permanent Working Group for the Security of Journalists, prosecutor’s offices formed 42 cases linked to the imperilling of the safety of journalists in the first six months of 2023. These cases have to date resulted in four convictions, while four cases of filed criminal charges have been dismissed after it was determined that no criminal offense occurred, an official note insisting that there are no grounds to launch criminal proceedings has been issued in three cases, the conducting of evidence gathering is underway in six cases, requests to collect the required information have been filed in 24 cases, while in one case the perpetrator was not identified even after the completion of the preliminary investigation.
Compared to the same period of last year, the number of reported attacks and threats remains the same (42).
The Working Group’s session was attended by representatives of the Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Interior Ministry of the Republic of Serbia, the Association of Independent Electronic Media, the Association of Online Media, the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia, the Journalists’ Association of Serbia, the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina, as well as a representative of the OSCE Mission to Serbia.
