After “Informer” and other tabloids reported that ZoranaMihajlovic was the only minister who supported the British resolution on Srebrenica at the last week’s government session, the yellow press launched a new salvo of accusations at the government VP and Minister of transportation and even death threats have appeared on social networks. The government’s and prosecutor’s lack of reaction to this media manhunt indicates that such conduct will remain unpunished, RSE interlocutors say.
After “Informer” published the headline “Minister believes that Serbs raped children?!” some self-proclaimed analysts close to the ruling party immediately voiced accusations that this “adulation to western powers has crossed the line.” Social media are heated up by lynch calls aimed toward Minister ZoranaMihajlovic and on Facebook you could read statements like “Better that the witch should burn” or “I don’t want her resignation, I want her shot right now”.
This isn’t the first and by all accounts it won’t be the last time someone lynches public figures, heads of independent institutions and even elected officials via tabloids. What’s symptomatic and telling is the fact nobody in the Government made any sort of statement regarding these death threats to its VP, not even to distance themselves from them.
These mudslinging attacks coming from the tabloids and aimed at political opponents, figures from independent institutions and even select politicians from the ruling coalition have become a form of governance in Serbia, says DraganJanjic, VP of NUNS, for RSE.
“That is becoming a sort of form of governance here, a continuous practice that doesn’t back down even when it it’s victims are figures in institutions and in power, political opponents or even its own people. Everything is possible and everything is allowed because there is no reaction unless someone at the top of the food chain is feels they are targeted personally. It seems it suites someone that this is the case otherwise a statement or a call for an emergency press conference would be published immediately. This way a minster who allegedly had an opinion that some or most of the Ministers found displeasing is simply being torn apart by the media. This is how we’re ruled and that is how you send a message to others what happens if they misbehave,” said Janjicand adds that media associations can do little to put an end to this form tabloid execution of people:“Media associations are ineffectual and their opinions can’t significantly change things. The minister can sue the newspaper because its insinuations and the lynch campaign she is exposed to.”
The front pages of “Informer” over a long period of time reflect a staggering moral decline of the profession, but competent institutions have to address the issue as well, says Milan Antonijevic from the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.
“I think all politicians and people who fight for the freedom of the media should distance themselves from this and we must see an appropriate reaction of competent institutions. I would say there are even some criminal offense elements in those headlines; persecution and the endangering of the safety of ZoranaMihajlovic and previously the Ombudsman SasaJankovic. All of those campaigns who’s starting point were the front pages of “Informer” had as their result the endangering of people’s security and, later, threats which could be realized. Somebody needs to be held accountable for that and certain reaction must come from the state as well,” says Antonijevic noting that in this case, as well as the previous ones, there is room for the State Prosecutor to act but the fact that it remains passive is very telling:
“There is room for the Prosecutor to act; I think it’s even obliged to respond since not just this case but the case of the Ombudsman SasaJankovic caused great stirrings in the public. I don’t see that the Public Prosecutor is taking any sort of action regarding this, which spurs the people who orchestrated this lynch to continue to do so in the future with impunity,” warns Milan Antonijevic.
