21. 10. 2004

ANEM and NUNS withdraw Broadcast Council nominations

BELGRADE, October 21, 2004 (B92) – The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) has withdrawn its nominations for members of the Broadcast Agency Council. The association’s Board of Management has also announced that it will take no further part in coordinating lists of candidates with other organisations. In a statement on October 20, ANEM gave as the reason for its decision “serious violation of the Broadcast Act and perversion of its concept of the Broadcast Agency Council as an independent consultant body”. ANEM had submitted its nominations to the Serbian Parliament jointly with the Independent Association of Serbian Journalists (NUNS), the Independent Association of Vojvodina Journalists (NDNV) and the Association of Serbian Composers. “ANEM and NUNS note that the amendments to the Broadcast Act adopted recently have set a dangerous precedent according to which the mandate of council members, even those elected in full conformity with the law, was terminated in a way which left no guarantee that the council would maintain its independence in the future,” said the board in its statement. The board also cites the recent amendments to the Broadcast Act, noting that they enable any future majority in the parliament to dismiss the entire council and elect new members at will, thus creating “still more chaos in the media sector and paving the way for a return to the model of media obsequiousness which prevailed in the last decade of the last century”. “This decision is also supported by the Association of Serbian Dramatic Artists, which is responsible for proposing a separate list of nominations to the council. This association has also withdrawn its list of candidates for the same reasons,” said the ANEM board. “ANEM, NUNS, NDNV and the Association of Serbian Composers, together with the Association of Serbian Dramatic Artists with its separate list of nominations “can simply no longer ignore the law and coordinate with people who are in no way authorised to take part in the nomination process. Nor will they relinquish the concept of a council which consists of independent experts rather than mere delegates of certain proposer,” the statement continued. The signatories to the statement are the chairman of the ANEM board of management, Slobodan Stojsic, the president of the Independent Association of Serbian Journalists, Nebojsa Bugarinovic, the president of the Independent Association of Vojvodina Journalists, Dinko Gruhonjic, the president of the Association of Serbian Composers, Marija Kovac, and the president of the Association of Serbian Dramatic Artists, Sonja Jaukovic.