Vuk Maras, executive director of BIRN’s Montenegro country organisation, became barred from coming into Serbia at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport on Monday.
Maras said that the written decision explained that he became being refused entry in a “protective elimination measure, a security measure for expelling a foreigner”.
He said the decision might per chance well per chance also be a counter-measure after the Montenegrin authorities’ barred the proprietor and editor-in-chief of Serbian official-authorities Informer television, Dragan J. Vucicevic, from coming into Montenegro.
“I accept as true with that right here’s a continuation of Belgrade’s ‘reciprocal measures’ in opposition to people from the media neighborhood in Montenegro, and that I ‘earned’ this ban because of the of the criticisms about media freedom in Serbia that I made publicly within the media in Montenegro. Obviously, I stand within the help of them 100 per cent,” Maras said.
“The decision of the regime in Serbia to retaliate against individuals who objectively, professionally and impartially enact their job causes even extra wretchedness, because of the it’s evident that there is colossal distress by system of anyone who thinks freely,” he added.
BIRN strongly criticised the refusal to grant Maras entry.
“This decision by the Serbian authorities to forestall Vuk Maras from coming into the country is unacceptable and represents a blow to media freedom,” BIRN said in a assertion.
Maras said became travelling to Rome nonetheless determined to enter Serbia in say to refer to with central Belgrade as he had a protracted gap between flights. He described his remedy by border police on the airport as “kind and official”.
He became on account of be deported to Montenegro later on Monday. He has launched that he’ll appeal against the decision in court docket.
Montenegrin journalist Petar Komnenic, creator of the expose ‘Nacisto’ on TV Vijesti, became moreover barred from coming into Serbia closing week.
Informer’s editor Dragan J. Vucicevic became barred from coming into Montenegro on June 26 after he known as Montenegrin speak institutions “anti-Serb” and likened them to Croatian World Battle II-period fascists on Informer TV, accusing them of without lengthen endangering the lifetime of Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic.
On June 26, Vucic launched what he described as reciprocal measures against people “who engaged in hybrid struggle against Serbia”.
After Komnenic became banned from coming into Serbia, Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic said that the journalistic approaches of Komnenic and Vucicevic can no longer be when put next with every a spread of.
Spajic argued that Vucicevic “always insults Montenegro, its residents and speak officers in his public appearances and with the roar he publishes”.