December 31, 2022
The Assembly of the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) has decided to remove the association from the Working Group for the Security and Protection of Journalists, which was established by the Government of Serbia.
This oldest and largest journalists’ association in Serbia considers that the Government of Serbia has failed to fulfil its promise that this working group would be committed to supporting journalists “including protection against attacks that come from holders of political authority”.
The Working Group for the Security and Protection of Journalists was established in late 2020, but by March 2021 it had already been abandoned by the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation over its failure to publicly condemn attacks made by certain tabloids and politicians on the newsroom of the investigative journalism portal KRIK and their association with the Veljko Belivuk criminal group.
This was immediately followed by the withdrawals from the group of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina, the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia, the Media Association, the Association of Online Media and the local media association LocalPress.
The Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation and these five associations subsequently formed the Coalition for Media Freedom.
