The Youth Initiative for Human Rights filed the complaint against the aforementioned television on July 4 this year, alleging violations of the provisions of the Law on Electronic Media and the Rulebook on the Protection of Human Rights in the Provision of Media Services, following the broadcast of the “Focus” TV show, which covered the “Mirëdita, Dobar Dan!” festival.
The complaint was submitted with the support of the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation due to misinformation, biased and incomplete reporting; violations of human rights in media services; hate speech; and one-sided attacks. We believe that six articles of the Rulebook on the Protection of Human Rights in the Provision of Media Services were violated. Our complaint listed several examples where the hosts and guests provided incomplete information, biased and inaccurate conclusions, unsubstantiated claims, and false accusations, thereby endangering the human rights of the festival participants and organizers. We believe that hate speech was used in the most aggressive manner toward the organizers and certain participants, with the intention of shaping a subjective and one-sided opinion about them. In this way, public interest was harmed due to the dissemination of false, biased, and incomplete information and conclusions.
One of the statements made during the program was:
“You now have an absolute situation where some OVK [Kosovo Liberation Army] killer and murderer, semi-illiterate, has become a writer and now he comes with a book, and he is probably fundamentally illiterate… I’m not exaggerating, I’m not joking, but literally what I’m saying, which sounds like some kind of caricature, is the reality they want to serve us. Security is absolutely… That security risk… To make something happen, I have the impression that these organizers from these NGOs financed from abroad, from Priština, and from Kurti himself, want this to happen. The goal of this festival is to make something happen, so that Belgrade can then be blamed.”
In the complaint, we also noted that we believe violations of Articles 61 and 71 of the Law on Electronic Media occurred in the “Focus” TV show, which concern the general obligations of media service providers regarding program content—ensuring truthful, objective, complete, and timely information—and the prohibition of broadcasting content that promotes or encourages discrimination, hatred, or violence in an open or hidden manner based on race, color, ancestry, nationality, language, religious or political beliefs, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, property status, birth, genetic traits, health condition, disability, marital and family status, criminal record, age, appearance, membership in political, trade union, or other organizations, or other actual or presumed personal characteristics.
Although we requested that REM take appropriate action against TV B92 under the Law on Electronic Media, their response states that there are no grounds for initiating proceedings ex officio.
Meanwhile, the Initiative has also filed a criminal complaint against three individuals who participated in this broadcast—journalist and host Oliver Jakšić, Saša Milovanović, and Dejan Miletić—on charges of violating freedom of speech and public expression under Article 148 of the Criminal Code; racial and other discrimination under Article 387 of the Criminal Code; endangering security under Article 138 of the Criminal Code; and inciting national, racial, and religious hatred and intolerance under Article 317 of the Criminal Code.
