31 May Press Shelter Kragujevac: From a punch in a head to court disputes
One of the signatories of this text, otherwise the author of the radio show and portal “From heaaad”, and the author of “Chatter” on Radio Kragujevac at the time, was once received a punch head. One of the dissatisfied listeners reached for this kind of “criticism”. He waited for the author of “Chatter” to come out of the newsroom into the street, and then attacked him from behind. The attacker has never been caught and prosecuted, although the incident was accompanied by medical records and duly reported to the police.
However, the danger for Kragujevac journalists is not so much the audience. The danger to journalists is posed by the persons they report on. This is evidenced by the current announcement of the correspondent of “Danas” from Kragujevac, journalist Zoran Radovanovic, that these days he will file a lawsuit against the responsible persons of the Industrial Union of the factory “Zastava Arms” in Kragujevac due to accusations that he is “on the payroll of the (representative) Independent Trade Union, as well as that his closest relatives are the leading criminals from Kragujevac who ‘sell bricks’ in the city to local businessmen.”
Semi-threats and threats in “cordial” telephone conversations
– I will no longer tolerate criminals and thugs who steal money, abuse their position and this city and state, says Zoran Radovanović for Radio Zlatousti and the portal “From heaaad.” He announced in the newspaper “Danas” that he considers these accusations “hard but not harmless nonsense.” Radovanovic states in “Danas” that the representatives of the Independent Trade Union “Zastava Arms” claimed that the accusations were made at the expense of the president of the factory Supervisory Board Ivica Momcilovic. Businessmen, trade unionists, and media representatives whom Marjanović assessed as to his opponents were brutally insulted and accused without any evidence.
Zoran Radovanovic: Why would anyone call me on the phone for my texts
This journalist from Kragujevac adds that he was threatened several times during his decades-long journalistic career. There were attempts to ban him from reporting from “Zastava” where he entered topics more sharply and broke through closed circles. He lost his job four or five times, of which he especially remembers being expelled from “Borba”. Nothing has changed in the last few years, except that he will no longer tolerate it. In 2018, the journalist also filed a criminal complaint against Milovan Stojanovic, a member of the University of Kragujevac Council, because of hidden threats in a telephone conversation in which he was advised to ‘calm down a bit’. At that time, it has also been claimed that he was on the payroll, but then Arsenijevic (meaning two former rectors of the University, Slobodan and Nebojsa Arsenijević.) This criminal complaint was rejected after a few months. The correspondent of “Danas” still repeats that he was not surprised that the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office rejected his criminal report. He knows where he lives and is engaged in media activities, and he believes that those against whom lawsuits are filed also know that.
– Why would anyone call me on the phone for my texts? And why would I tolerate those calls, half-threats, and threats? These conversations begin with some closeness and then get a threatening overtone or an irony that runs through them. If you are dissatisfied with my texts, there is a denial, which my editorial office is obliged to publish. There is a court, so let’s force ourselves and prove it, but not like this, journalist says.
However, in his opinion, Kragujevac, unlike other areas like Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis… is not so brutal in attacks on journalists.
– The progressives who are in power here are not so rigid. Kragujevac as a more democratic environment would give fierce resistance, claims Radovanovic.
When you are chased by the Mayor
That there are fewer threats to the safety of media representatives in Kragujevac is evidenced by the official data of the Basic and Higher Prosecutor’s Offices, according to which there have been no such reports in the last three years (except for the aforementioned Zoran Radovanovic.) However, a kind of pressure is the so-called Slapp lawsuits of various public figures, with the goal of financially and mentally exhausting journalists and their media houses.
The most famous Kragujevac weekly “Svetlost” appeared in court in the process where the prosecutor was the mayor Vlatko Rajkovic himself. The correspondent of “Politika” from Kragujevac Brane Kartalovic also was sued by at that moment the former mayor. In 2015, Mayor Veroljub Stevanovic filed a criminal complaint against Kartalovc, accusing him of untruths and lies against his administration. The Basic Court rejected this application. At the first official press conference, after coming to the leading position, Mayor Radomir Nikolic attacked the journalists, claiming that they were in favor of his political opponent, the aforementioned Veroljub Stevanovic. During the six years of his management of Kragujevac from October 2014 to August 2020, the authorities in Kragujevac ignored the legal obligation to announce a competition for co-financing media content that is important for the public interest.
Brane Kartalovic: When you are sued by the Mayor
Brane Kartalović still remembers the pressures he suffered as a journalist in the middle of the last decade by the city administration leaders. As he did not react to those pressures, they took a detour. They reached him through the editorial board of “Politika.” Fortunately, the editorial board of “Politika” stood behind its correspondent, as well as the Journalist Association of Serbia and the Independent Association of Journalists’ of Serbia. As a curiosity, Kartalović points out the fact that many local journalists who supported the local government turned against him emphasizing that media representatives are also responsible for putting pressure on their colleagues.
– Although there were not many cases of endangering the physical security of journalists in Kragujevac, I cannot claim that there were no threats or pressure. Personally, I have never felt threatened. I had the support and protection of the editorial office, but I thought my wife and my daughter are endangered due to my job. They both suffered from certain pressures at work and at school, claims Brane Kartalovic.
Pressures on families
– I have been exposed to different types of pressure throughout my career, says one of the authors of this text, Miroslav Miletic, a radio performer, mentioned at the beginning of the text.– Those pressures vary over time. In the time of Slobodan Milosevic, until October 5, those were phone calls, threats… For example, we had a phone call that said: “We know the stroller your wife is using for taking a child in the park.” or “watch out what you saying, we’ll drop a bomb on your studio” So, then when I did a show at night, and they laser pointed at me. Until the mentioned physical attack that happened on one Saturday after the show “Chatter.”
Miletic says that he knows who the person who physically attacked him was and in whose name, and that, of course, it was about politics. It is interesting that he still meets that person who greets him very warmly on the street. The pressure continued even after October 5. Even the democratic authorities did not like how they were treated in his shows.
– You feel isolated. They don’t call you. You don’t exist for certain circles, although I have never liked it, I have never been close to political circles. Political circles are like a magnet. The closer they are, the more they attract you. You cling to them, and then you can’t detach. In the last few years since the SNS has come to power, the pressures have more economic character. Nobody forbids you to write or to talk about anything. But, in that case, you are isolated from financial sources.
Miletic performed his show on the stage of the Knjaževo-Serbian Theater by organizing the Poetry-Cabaret Oratorio “From heaaad”, with the aim of gaining a wider audience. Topics were not only local. Especially after the performance of “Oratorio” in BITEF – a wall was created around him that grew in proportion to the publicity he received – the greater the publicity, the higher the wall. He is also one of those journalists who personally met his “reader zero,” the police officer.
– At the time when Sloba ruled, I was writing for “Youth Spark” from Split, newspapers that sold over a hundred thousand copies. I was a columnist in the highest-circulation weekly. I had the whole page of the newspaper to write what I wanted.
I wrote “Serbian style exercises” until the meaningless war, the fees were good. We went some time to Split, and in our free time to the cafe “Balkan.” There, at the bar table, I met my “reader zero.” I can remember what he looked like: a ski vest in a calm greenish hue, a mustache, a little bigger, good-natured and pleasant interlocutor. He told me that he regularly received “Spark” every Friday and that he read my texts with pleasure! “You write great. Congratulations!” He praised me.
It was not easy for him: he had to read everything I wrote, make a report, type without keyboard shortcuts! It was tormenting, but work is work! Miletic remembers those “accidental encounters.”
“Servants of Satan”
The editor and owner of the Kragujevac portal “Sumadia Voice,” Jovanka Nikolic is one of the Kragujevac journalists who are currently the most affected by hate speech on digital social networks. She says that she does not perceive these attacks of hate speech as a threat, but more as the need for people to “hand over their dissatisfaction” to a person who is engaged in public affairs, especially journalism.
– Many have fake profiles, so I can’t judge whether they are people I know or not, but it is obvious that a good part of them are politically passionate. Now we have anti-vaxxers who tell us that we are a “Satanist site,” “servants of Satan,” that we are “mercenaries,” that we are “Soros” even some of our Kragujevac portals transmit our entire text, without stating that it is ours, and then they say that “Soros people are rubbing their hands.”
Jovanka Nikolic: Attacks from fake profiles
Jovanka Nikolić believes that she drew part of the public’s anger on herself as the former director of Radio-Television Kragujevac. She has been claimed to be in favor of the government that appointed her. However she was the only director so far who was not a member of any party, and according to exact data, raised the rating of that media house. (Radio-Television Kragujevac was then also called “Verkovizia.”) At that time, she had to make difficult decisions, which included giving up some staff who created the foundations of that television and the foundations of journalism in Kragujevac, but which, in her opinion, was out-timed. The fact that she employs young, educated staff causes disagreements and rage.
– When the government in Kragujevac changed in 2014, I had an offer from an important member of the Serbian Progressive Party to meet Nebojsa Stefanovic. They offered me to put on paper what I want. When I refused it, the pressures of economic crime begin. Labor inspections are coming, the tax police, so I no longer know who did not investigate the business of Radio-Television Kragujevac. After I was replaced, the famous show “Unwinding” was broadcasted against me during the election silence in 2016. The show was emitted In three days, six times a day. Although nobody asked for my opinion, many believed in what was told about me. (Nikolic later won court disputes in which some of these topics were determined.)
There are many examples, such as these in which Kragujevac professional journalists suffer from various types of threatening due to their job and giving information in the public interest. What they have in common is that they mostly end up without prosecuting those responsible and without satisfaction for journalists who are targets because of their work. We tried to get the permission of the republican bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia to talk to the police officer in charge of the security of Kragujevac journalists. The requested consent did not reach the closing of this text.
Gordana Jocic, editor of Radio Zlatousti
Miroslav Miletic, editor of the portal “From heaaad”