Masimo Morati Must Leave Serbia by September 19
Serbia's Interior Ministry ordered researcher Masimo Morati to leave by tomorrow under a one year entry ban, as NUNS, UNS, ANEM and ten European media groups demand the decision be withdrawn.
Italian human rights researcher Masimo Morati has until tomorrow, September 19, to leave Serbia. On September 4, the Interior Ministry (MUP) rejected his application for temporary residency, ordered him to leave the country within 15 days and imposed a one year entry ban. The only reason given was that Morati poses an “unacceptable security risk to the country,” with no further explanation of what that assessment was based on.
The case gained fresh weight today, the same day the deadline expires, as three domestic groups and ten European organizations spoke out about it at once, while an appeal Morati filed eight days ago still has no answer.
Who Masimo Morati Is
Morati is a senior researcher at the Italian organization Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT), where he has worked since 2005, first as a correspondent from Sarajevo and later from Belgrade. He spent roughly a decade in Serbia working on European Union projects and also served as deputy director of Amnesty International’s regional office for Europe. He comes from Staranzano, near Gorizia.
He returned to Belgrade with his family in 2022 and has lived there since with his wife, a Japanese national who works in the city, and their two year old son, who holds dual Italian and Japanese citizenship. His wife and son were granted residence permits. He was not.
Timeline of the Residency Request
Morati filed his application for temporary residency at the end of January this year. According to a timeline published by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), his partner received her residency permit in May, and in June Morati sat for a formal interview with the Security Information Agency (BIA) about his current and past professional work in the country.
On September 3, according to the Italian news agency ANSA, his wife received a call from police asking Morati to report to the Foreigners’ Administration the following day, where he was handed the expulsion order. With the help of a lawyer, he filed an appeal on September 10 and, according to the EFJ, also asked the Administrative Court for an urgent measure to suspend enforcement of the decision, citing the forced family separation that expulsion would cause. As of today, according to ANSA, no response to the appeal has arrived.
What Journalist Associations Are Demanding
The Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS) said in a statement:
“We call on the competent authorities to inform the public without delay of the legal basis and the specific reasons for such a decision, and to reconsider and withdraw it.”
The association specifically warned that the decision does not explain whether the security risk assessment was influenced by Morati’s professional work:
“We are especially concerned about the absence of a clear explanation of whether Morati’s work in the field of media freedom, his research activities or his public engagement influenced the assessment of an alleged security risk.”
NUNS also grounded its demand for withdrawal in European standards:
“Any restriction of this kind must be based on law, clearly explained, proportionate and applied without discrimination, with full respect for the freedom of expression and of the media guaranteed under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
The Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) separately asked the Interior Ministry to publicly explain the grounds on which Morati was declared a security risk, arguing that freedom of movement is a basic human right. Veran Matic, chairman of the governing board of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), said Serbia increasingly resembles Belarus and similar countries without independent, free media, and noted that six Serbian journalists are currently living in exile.
A joint statement of support for Morati was also signed by ten European organizations: OBCT, EFJ, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF), Free Press Unlimited, ARTICLE 19 Europe, the International Press Institute (IPI), Index on Censorship, Reporters Without Borders, the Balkan Free Media Initiative and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). They argue that the residency denial and expulsion order amount to a form of administrative intimidation rather than a genuine security measure.
A Discrepancy Over Mission Dates, Sources Disagree
Part of the case made by NUNS and the European organizations rests on Morati’s participation, as an OBCT representative, in a media freedom mission that visited Belgrade. Here the sources diverge. NUNS and the EFJ, as well as the Serbian broadcaster N1, say the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) mission, together with the Council of Europe’s Platform for the Safety of Journalists, visited Serbia in March 2026, with its final report published in July of the same year. The Italian agency ANSA, however, writes that the mission came to Serbia in March 2023. Which date is correct cannot be determined from the available sources.
Interior Ministry Silent
As of publication, the Interior Ministry had not publicly responded to questions from NUNS, UNS and ANEM about the reasons behind the decision, nor had it offered any further explanation of the security assessment it is based on. The only official justification remains the same sentence from the September 4 ruling, citing an “unacceptable security risk to the country.”
The deadline the Interior Ministry set for Morati expires tomorrow, September 19. Will an answer to the appeal filed eight days ago arrive in time, or will the Italian researcher have to leave Serbia, and his family, without a single additional explanation?
