The RTS (Radio-television of Serbia) building, a symbol of Milosevic’s Serbia better known as TV Bastille, had been set on fire on October 5, 2000. Everybody thought it announced a death of Milosevic’s autocracy. Everybody thought it announced the end of manipulation, censorship and denial of the right to know the truth. It turned out that the independent media in Serbia was nothing more than a never-reached ideal.
Radio program Pescanik, the last media stronghold of critical thought in Serbia, is attacked again. After jamming their signal, as well as serious physical threatening the authors, hidden but well-organized groups of hackers have crashed their website. Pescanik.net is temporarily unavailable.
Obviously, political and business elites of today resort found out more sophisticated forms of pressure and influence in placing the media scene under their control. It is indicative that the state structures control the largest share of direct ownership of almost all media outlets in Serbia.
Pescanik is the only light in Serbia’s media and political darkness. It started as a radio show (broadcasted on the B92 radio) as a sole and fierce critique of the current political situation. Soon it has acquired a cult status as a synonym for freedom of expression. It all culminated with the Reporters Sans Frontiers award in 2006.
During the past two years Pescanik’s crew was organizing promotions in various places in Serbia which main purpose was to stimulate the public debate about socio-political issues that are usually very painful to address. One of those promotions was brutally interrupted.
It happened in Arandjelovac, on the 3rd of December, 2007. Several dozens of hooligans forcibly broke up the promotion of Pescanik, forcing the organizers to put it off indefinitely. It supposed to be an ordinary debate and it turned into a fascistic orgy justified as a protection fight of so called national interests. Nothing could be done to stop physical clashes and a barrage of insults.
Moreover, there is no one to complain to, because The Republican Broadcasting Agency has deep financial and political connections with the state structures.
Those facts do not speak of the Radio Program Pescanik itself but of the overall situation in Serbia where suppressing the freedom of expression and the freedom of speech reflects serious problems in the society. Glorifying the lawlessness with the absence of a unified reaction of the ruling coalition to this incident may be interpreted in one way only – as giving a green light for all possible and similar future actions.
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