Svetlana Bozic: We are not supposed to deal with consequences for asking questions (VIDEO)

Svetlana Bozic was penalized by the decision of the director of this TV station, followed by salary decrease, because she posed questions to the PM Aleksandar Vucic at journalists’ conference on April 1st, which she read in the name of the Initiative of Youth for Human Rights.

Regarding Vucic’s appeal to the management of RTV not to penalize the journalist, she said that she expected the event to gain political weight, and that “everybody will try to justify themselves”. She added that the director of RTV told her that the decision was his alone, and he was not pressured to make it.

“That’s not a sufficient excuse. Whatever the motive was, anticensorship or a business decision, that’s bad for the work we do. It says plenty about the current state of our society and our line of work. Maybe it’s even worse that nobody called him, and that he actually did what he did”, Bozic stated for Insajder.net.

Svetlana Bozic Kraincanic was suspended at first. The reason for suspension was the posing of questions from the list that she got from the NGO Initiative of Youth for Human Rights, whose activists were protesting in front of the Government building at the time of journalist’s conference.

PM has, however, criticized the management of RTV today, because of their decision to penalize Svetlana Bozic.

“Pajtic’s and Canak’s Director of RTV penalized, as I hear, the reporter of RTV, supposedly for my sake. Don’t penalize Svetlana Bozic for my sake, because I like her questions. I enjoy them. I enjoy responding… It’s a conversation. It’s a democracy. It’s a dialogue”, Vucic stated. 
He pleaded that no one should be penalized for his sake.

“Don’t punish anyone in my name sake and you do it on purpose 10 days before the election, so that it might turn out that I asked for it. Shame on you! Let the woman do her job and ask whatever she wants”, Vucic said.

The Director explained his decision with violation the Article 3 of Ethic Codex of RTV, where it says that “the employee will not allow the interests of a third party to influence the report”. In order to use this Article of the Codex, the Director said that Svetlana Bozic Kraincanic has managed to break the rule because “she made possible for the third party to influence the report”.

Representatives of the Initiative of Youth for Human Rights gathered on April 1st in front of the Government building of Serbia to send the message to the PM that everybody in Serbia remembers who was the “young Vucic” in the 90’s and demanded a “clear” explanation towards the idea of Greater Serbia.

Before the conference began, they were handing out the flyers in front of the Government with a request than any willing journalist should forward their questions to Vucic, the questions that deal with his past.

At the conference, the journalist of RTV Svetlana Bozic posed the question to Vucic “does he renounce the politics from the 90’s when he stood by Seselj”. Only after the PM asked if this question is something that was demanded from “those in the front”, the journalist followed with the questions of the Initiative.

Take a look at the conference video:

The Director of RTV: Political agenda in the journalist’s error 

The General Director of RTV Srđan Mihajlovic stated that he is ready to apologize if the authorities determine that he was wrong about the penalty that he imposed on the editor of this regional public service, Svetlana Bozic Kraincanic.

In his statement, he assessed that there is a “political agenda behind the journalist’s error” and called for a meeting of journalist associations.
Mihajlovic claimed that he penalized the chief of correspondence from Belgrade Svetlana Bozic Kraincanic in within his authority and in order to protect the interest of RTV as a public media service, and added that the journalist can go on with her professional work.

She was penalized with April’s salary decrease of 20%, and Mihajlovic said that this disciplinarian action has nothing to do with making the mistake at Vucic’s conferencefor journalists and that the management of RTV never considered “is there a good or a bad time to sanction the mistake when it’s been made”.

He stated that “this is not about the question of censorship or freedom of the media, but rather a political agenda behind the journalist’s error, not made by RTV”, and added that program policy and image of RTV are the best proof of his relation towards the freedom of journalist’s profession.

Mihajlovic said that he is ready for a dialogue about the all questions raised with journalist’s associations.

“Until then, I deeply believe that we are all in need of an attitude change where it’s very easy to brand, pressure and exclude, which became a legitimate tool to accomplish different goals”, Mihajlovic stated.

NUNS, NDNV and the Initiative “Journalists do not kneel” have criticized the decision of RTV to penalize Svetlana Bozic Kraincic.