The Agreement on the Safety of Journalists is Just a First Step toward Protection

The representatives of the Ministry of Interior, prosecutor’s office and media associations signed the Agreement on Cooperation and Measures for Increasing the Safety of Journalists. Only with its implementation it will be possible to see whether journalists can expect better protection.

By Ana Novaković (BIRN) / Photo: mup.gov.rs
@Ann_Novakovic

On Monday, 26 December 2016, the representatives of the Ministry of Interior, prosecutor’s office and media associations signed the Agreement on Cooperation and Measures for Increasing the Safety of Journalists which should provide better protection for the journalists. The Agreement, envisaged by the Action Plan for Chapter 23, was signed one year after the initial talks about it took place.

Signatories to the Agreement who were interviewed by BIRN agree that this document is a good first step towards achieving a better understanding of how jeopardized journalists are. However, successful recording, analysis and solving of the cases where threats and attacks on journalists took place depend on its implementation.

Biljana Popović Ivković, state secretary at the MoI, said that the Agreement does not come only as a requirement for Serbia on its European integration path, but also as a sincere wish of all the signatories, to establish better communication and a closer cooperation.

The Agreement itself is a memorandum of understanding that is non-binding in its nature. Its purpose is to allow for a better communication between journalists and state institutions in charge of solving threats and attacks on journalists.

Dragan Janjić, editor at Beta news agency and one of the signatories on behalf of the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS), believes that the problem of pressures and threats directed toward journalists and the media is not solved by this document. He claims it is just a tool that can be very useful when it comes to motivating the authorities to show more agility when it comes to doing their job of protecting journalists. Its implementation is completely up to the state authorities and does not depend on journalists at all.

“This can be considered as a preventive mechanism, namely if the cooperation turns out to be effective, its effects could be discouraging for future potential threats,” says Janjić.

The Agreement envisages establishment of a standing working group, comprised of representatives of the public administration and journalist associations who signed the agreement. The standing working group should, in addition to the analysis of the state of play when it comes to the communication and openness of state authorities towards the media, organize trainings for journalists on the IT safety, protective measures, as well as their rights when it comes to the criminal and legal protection related to their work.

In addition, trainings for the representatives of prosecution and police will be organized as well, with the intention to make them better understand the problems faced by journalists and the media and solve them more efficiently.

A huge identified problem is the fact that there exists no centralized record of all threats and attacks directed towards journalists, since media associations, police and prosecution all have different date on this issue.

Predrag Blagojević, president of the Managerial Board of the Association of Online Media, welcomes the signing of the Agreement because of the possibility to finally have a harmonized record of attacks on the journalists, kept by the prosecution and associations.

“It is a fact that certain cases were reported to the associations and were not at the same time reported to the police or the prosecutor’s office, which does not mean that the latter two should remain inactive. There are reasons among the records and it is good that now these will be reduced,” said Blagojević.

Ljiljana Smajlović, president of the Journalist Association of Serbia (UNS), hopes that the Agreement will motivate journalists to report all incidents.

“We should be getting a clearer picture when it comes to the safety of journalists, when all the attack become recorded using the same methodology. We will also get feedback on the actions that are taken with the view to processing the cases and attackers,” said Smajlović.

Veran Matić, president of the Commission for the Investigation of Journalists’ Murders, drawing on the experience from the Commission, drafted the initial text of the document that subsequently underwent major revisions through comments submitted by the media associations, prosecution and the MoI.

In his words, at this moment there is no connection between the standing working group envisaged by the Agreement and the Commission headed by him, although the cooperation between the two goes without saying.

“We have copious experience in working in the field, so I believe this working group will need some help. We have our mission and it is focused on investigating the murder of journalist Milan Pantić. If there are suggestions for the working group and the Commission to participate in investigating these old cases of attacks, threats, murders and attempted murders, we are keen on contributing to that as well,” says Matić.

The article was originally published on the web-portal JAVNO.rs in Serbian. Translated by Bojan Elek.