Pavlovac: Journalists Stojkovic attacked, in hospital
The editor of Info Vranjske and a Vecernje Novosti correspondent were attacked while checking a tip about suspected vote buying. The attack was reported to the Vranje prosecutor.
Mihailo Stojkovic, editor of the Info Vranjske portal, and Jelena Stojkovic, a Vranje journalist and Vecernje Novosti correspondent, were physically attacked in the village of Pavlovac near Vranje on Sunday, October 25, the day of the snap parliamentary elections. An ambulance took both to the hospital in Vranje.
They had gone to the village after an activist tipped them off about suspected vote buying. The attack has been reported to the competent prosecutor’s office in Vranje. At the time of publication there was no information on any attackers being identified or arrested, and none of the sources carries a police statement on the case.
What did Mihailo Stojkovic say about the attack?
He described to Juzne Vesti how events unfolded from the moment they entered the village:
As soon as we entered the village, a group of people came up to us and asked who we were and what we wanted. We introduced ourselves and started taking photos, and then they came up to us again and started grabbing our mobile phones. We somehow managed to get them back, and then we saw a large group of people approaching us, and that was when it all started. They began hitting us with their hands and feet, and some even threw stones at us.
Stojkovic told the same outlet there were several dozen of them. He gave the weekly Vreme an account of the run back to their car:
A few people came first, and then, when they got close, we turned around and ran toward the main road, where our car was. Then the whole crowd came at us, pushing us, kicking us and throwing rocks. It was hell.
In a video published by Vreme, Jelena Stojkovic can be heard calling for the police as the two run toward the main road.
The sources differ on where the attack took place. According to Stojkovic, as relayed by Vreme, they never reached the polling station: they took a few photos and videos, and then the group moved toward them. Danas reports that the journalists tried to film the polling station, after which a group of gathered residents attacked them in the center of Pavlovac.
What does Jelena Stojkovic say?
She spoke to the Bujanovacke portal from the ambulance:
A group of several dozen citizens attacked us. They threw rocks at us, dragged us and hit us. My finger is injured and I have bruises, but my colleague Mihajlo took a serious beating, and I hope the extent of his injuries will be established at the hospital in Vranje.
The SNM portal, relaying the same statement, writes that the group numbered about ten people, which differs from her quote in Resetka and in Vreme’s account.
How serious are the injuries?
Mihailo Stojkovic has an injury to the right side of his body above the kidney and, according to Vranje News, was undergoing imaging and medical observation at the Vranje hospital. Jelena Stojkovic’s finger was injured, which, according to Vreme, happened when a woman tried to wrench the phone out of her hand. Juzne Vesti reported that doctors had yet to say how serious the injuries were. Mihailo Stojkovic told that outlet: “We are bruised and everything hurts, but above all we are shaken.”
On whether the phones were stolen, the sources agree: Danas says the journalists kept them, and Stojkovic says they managed to get them back.
What do we know about the police response?
The sources give three different accounts. Stojkovic says the only police officer at the scene did not react and simply stood and watched. He told Vreme that police later called him in to come to their premises and give a statement. Vranje News writes that police arrived at the scene and took statements from the journalists. Danas reports that when officers arrived they first took a statement from a municipal councilor, because a member of the polling board had been attacked earlier. The sources contain no response from police to Stojkovic’s complaint.
What are journalists’ organizations demanding?
Journalists’ and media organizations that are members of the Standing Working Group for the Safety of Journalists (SWG) said they were protesting the physical attacks on journalists and the denial of the right to report from polling stations. The statement reads: “The journalists’ side of the SWG demands that the competent authorities urgently find and punish those responsible for the attacks, and enable journalists to report without hindrance.”
The same statement lists cases from other places. A crew from Epicentar Press was not allowed to film at the polling station in the “Dr Dragisa Misovic” elementary school in Cacak, and the chair of the polling board at the Mechanical Engineering School in Pancevo refused to let Ivana Predic of the PANpress portal report.
In Vranje, the dispute over reporting began before election day. On Saturday, Mihailo Stojkovic, editor of Info Vranjske, once again had to leave the City Electoral Commission building escorted by security, on the grounds that he “does not have accreditation from the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK)”. A day earlier, SWG members had recalled the RIK’s position that the work of local electoral commissions is open to the public and that the RIK does not issue media accreditations for those commissions’ sessions.
On the same day, Dejan Dimic, editor of the Vranje News portal, was threatened in the Gornja Carsija neighborhood of Vranje. A man approached him and asked “why are you taking pictures”. Dimic reported the case to police, who had two patrols in the neighborhood so that, in his words, they would “keep in mind in case something happens”. Federika Onori, head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly observer mission, said that not all recommendations had been met and pointed to the problem of threats to journalists’ safety, Vreme reports.
