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I keep regularly abreast, through the corresponding bodies and institutions, about the progress of cases concerning the freedom of the press in Yugoslavia.
I insist, in keeping with Yugoslav laws and international norms, on the respect of legality, the speedy resolution of cases and that journalists are not denied their constitutional and legal right to the freedom of thought and expression.
Efforts for achieving the freedom of the media imply the denounciation of the denial of the possibility for work. During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia the Serbian Radio-Television (RTS) was on May 26 excluded from the in-advance-paid Eutel Sat satellite channel to prevent original sources from being heard and seen about what is really happenning in Kosovo and Metohija in Yugoslavia.
The basic principles of democracy are contained in the free flow of people, ideas, goods and capital. Yugoslavia, however, has been subjected to repressive, rather than democratic measures. Special lists are even being complied with names of persons, including journalists, who are banned from travelling to the United States and the European Union.
Over the past dozen years, a genuine expansion of privately-owned media has been recorded in Yugoslavia - founded have been about 120 TV stations, 450 radio-programs and more than 20 daily papers. At present there are about 2,500 dailies, weeklies and other periodicals and magazines.
Parallel to this, laws are being introduced for the protection of privacy, the regulation of the freedom of the media but also their responsibility for the truthfulness of information published. The freedom of opinions and expression are not questioned but slander and insults in the media are punishable under the law.
Unfortunately, you have still not reacted regarding the protection of the rights of Serb journalists in Kosovo and Metohija. The reporters of Jedinstvo, the sole Serb daily in Serbia's southern province, are out of work. Serb employees of Pristina Radio and Television, all non-Albanians and even ethnic Albanians loyal to Yugoslavia, met a similar fate.
Your Committee for the Protection of Journalists also failed to react to the jamming from abroad of radio and TV signals in Yugoslavia, and to the U.S. refusal to allow the operation of the www.beograd.com web site on Internet.