New threats and intimidation of journalists

July 15, 2019


An attacker suspected of having used social networks to threaten Zana Cimili, the Priština correspondent of cable news channel N1, has been placed under house arrest and banned from using the internet.

The 30-year-old man was arrested after commenting below the social network post of the N1 journalist that he has “a lifelong desire to kill an Albanian, even an Albanian child” and that he hopes “that a new war will break out in Kosovo, in which Albanians will be able to feel the Serb wrath”. The comments were sharply criticised by associations of Serbian and Kosovo journalists, but also Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić.

Death threats – again in comments from users of social networks – were also issued against Marko Vidojković and Nenad Kulačin, authors of the TV Šabac show “Good, bad, ugly”. After their broadcast featuring the comments of an opposition politician was uploaded to YouTube, a user under the name “Srđan Petrović” told the authors that he will kill them when he comes to power. No arrests have been made in connection with this threat more than two weeks after it was issued.

Verica Marinčić, a journalist of Inđija’s local portal IndjijaCafe, who has been intimidated repeatedly in recent weeks, while the portal she works for has been was under constant attack from hackers, has again found herself followed home and intimidated in front of her house. She told portal Cenzolovka that she was confronted by a man in a car with Belgrade number plates in front of her house and that she wasn’t sure whether it was the same person who previously harassed her, but that she was sure that it was the same vehicle.