In just a few days, almost all the levers of the state, the security service, the prosecution, the police and the court, turned against Montenegrin journalists. We are no longer talking about incidents, but about a pattern.
The director of the National Security Agency files criminal charges against two female investigative journalists and demands that they reveal their sources. The court obliges the oldest independent electronic media in the country to pay compensation to the Army officer for "mental pain" due to the article published almost three years ago. The columnist was summoned to the misdemeanor court for one sentence in a discussion on a social network.
Three reasons, several institutions: the security service, the prosecutor's office, the police, the court, and one single message: it is best for the media to remain silent, so that the "authorities" are satisfied.
The Media Council for Self-Regulation strongly condemns this pattern, because this is not a series of coincidences. The institutions of the system, which exist to protect the public's right to know, are increasingly turning against those whose job it is to inform the public and to control power.
The most difficult case is the Center for Investigative Journalism. The text "Security checks in ANB: Are more people employed by the will of the powerful" was published on May 31. On June 2, ANB director Ivica Janović filed a criminal complaint against journalists Andrea Perišić and Đurđa Radulović, as well as against unknown person, and on June 17, the journalists, accompanied by a lawyer, were invited to the Podgorica Security Center to give statements. They were also asked to reveal their sources, which they refused. And they were right. The Law on Media expressly stipulates that a journalist is not obliged to disclose the source of information. The only exception is possible solely on the basis of the decision of the competent court, at the request of the state prosecutor, and only when it is necessary for the protection of national security, territorial integrity or public health, and even then the court must examine whether the information is directly related to the case and whether it can be obtained in another way. There is no such court decision. Neither the director of the security service with a criminal complaint, nor the police in an "informative interview" can demand from journalists what only a court can by law.
By refusing to reveal their sources, the female journalists did exactly what the law and the Code of Journalists of Montenegro require of them, which the Media Law itself recognizes as a professional standard, and which stipulates that the protection of a confidential source is the journalist's right and obligation, and that a journalist must refuse to reveal a source under any pressure.
When the first man of the security service responds to a journalistic investigation of a topic of public interest with criminal charges for which a prison sentence of up to eight years is threatened, it is not a security protection, it is a demonstration of institutional power towards those whose job is to control that power.
The same pattern also includes the court decision by which "Antena M", the oldest independent electronic media in the country, is obliged to pay an officer of the Army of Montenegro a compensation for "mental pain" due to the article about the photos in which a member of the Army of Montenegro is posing under portraits of convicted war criminals. The officer does not dispute any of the published facts, he did not present any material evidence of "mental pain" to the court, and the text was published almost three years ago. The most important thing of all: as the newsroom itself pointed out, the officer never asked for a denial or a correction, to which he is entitled to under the Media Law, free of charge. There was, therefore, a peaceful, proportionate and law-provided path - the right to a reply, a correction, an appeal to the self-regulatory body. Instead of that, the court and the punishment were chosen. This does not concern only one editorial office, but also the entire architecture of self-regulation: when a proportionate remedy is bypassed, and the court rewards such bypassing, it is sending a message that a punishment is more profitable than a correction.
The same pattern also includes the fact that the columnist Duško Kovačević, the same one whom the Media Council has already named among the journalists exposed to invitations and "informative conversations", is now called before the Misdemeanor Court because of the sentence "Come on, get out of here..." addressed to the interlocutor in a discussion on his profile wall on the social network. The pressure we warned about has not stopped; it has changed the address and procedure.
This is not an assessment of only the domestic profession. Just a few days earlier, the European Union's non-paper on Chapters 23 and 24 stated that, despite condemnations of violence against journalists, strong verbal attacks on the media and civil society by public officials, including high-ranking officials from the security and defense sectors, continued. Montenegrin reality gave that sentence a name and a surname: the criminal charges are filed by the director of the security service; the lawsuit is filed by an army officer. A recent report by the European Parliament also expressed concern about the use of informal invitations and briefings against journalists and columnists for criticizing officials, with a particular warning about pressures on women working in the media. And that warning here has specific addresses - two female journalists have been summoned to a hearing, and a columnist to a court hearing.
That is why the Media Council for Self-Regulation calls on the State Prosecutor's Office to dismiss the criminal complaint against CIN-CG journalists as clearly unfounded and reminds them that the source of information, according to the current Media Law, can only be sought by a court decision, at the request of the prosecutor and with a strict test of necessity, never through a criminal report or in a police interview;
We call on public office holders, especially from the security and defense sectors, to refrain from using the institutions of the system as an instrument of pressure and to respond to journalistic questions with answers, not with criminal complaint files;
We remind you that anyone who believes that they have been harmed by media content has a peaceful and proportionate way: the right to a reply and a correction, self-regulation mechanisms and, only then, a court with guarantees of necessity and proportionality. Reaching out to the prosecutor's office, the police and the secret service is not seeking justice, but intimidation.
MSS expresses its full support to journalists Andrea Perišić and Đurđa Radulović, Duško Kovačević, as well as to the editorial offices of CIN-CG and Antena M.
An attack on journalists is not the protection of the state, it is an attack on the public's right to know. And the silence demanded by these messages is not peace, but rather the first step towards a society where only the obedient ask questions. Montenegro, which presents itself as a leader in European integration, cannot at the same time be a country where public interest becomes a criminal offense, and a journalistic source becomes evidence.
Media Council for Self-Regulaction
