The Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) and its Kosovo branch (DNKiM) sent a protest note today after the Kosovan government refused to allow four media crews reporting in Serbian to attend yesterday’s joint press conference of Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, the US Special Envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, and the EU Special Representative for Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak. They also called on the event organizers to apologize to these media teams.
Euronews reporter Andjelka Cup told UNS that government employees did not allow Serb journalists to attend the conference reportedly due to the pandemic, even though current measures allow for up to 30 people to be in a room. In addition to the Euronews crew, RTS, Prva TV, and the Gracanica online reporters were also not allowed to attend yesterday’s conference.
Journalist Andjelka Cup testified to KoSSev that this was not the first time that journalists who report in Serbian were discriminated against. Cup recalled that when Lajcak visited Pristina with the then US envoy Matthew Palmer in June last year, journalists reporting in Serbian were not provided with translation equipment. At the time, the EU claimed that this happened because they were not expecting so many Serbian news teams.
„Also, we never received Lajcak’s schedule, except for when some of the Kosovo institutions would send us the part of the schedule that concerned them, but if we didn’t receive that, we would reach out to our Albanian colleagues regarding the schedule. The next type of discrimination we face is restriction with questions – if they are allowed and if we even manage to attend the event. For example, three questions are set out for our Albanian colleagues, one for us. In short, there are no announcements about press conferences, or conferences are not even held. During Lajcak’s last visit, there was no conference, but colleagues from Albanian newsrooms managed to find out the agenda and intercept them.“
Cup also added that Kurti’s Cabinet seldom sends out announcements to Serb journalists. She specified that while, for example, they recently received an invitation to attend a laying of wreaths ceremony in Podujevo, they were not invited to yesterday’s event.
KoSSev: Our editorial office has not received announcements from the Government of Kosovo, or its coalition partner Srpska Lista, for years now. KoSSev called on them to change this practice on several occasions.
UNS and DNKiM stress that such behavior jeopardizes the right to information – which is guaranteed by numerous international conventions.
Furthermore, they point out that this is just one in a series of violations of the rights of the Serb community, and that the least that these journalists deserve is an apology.
UNS has repeatedly pointed out violations of the Law on the Use of Languages by Kosovan and international institutions, underlining that it will continue to monitor and highlight non-compliance with constitutional and legal obligations on equal use of the Serbian language in Kosovo.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
