On Sunday, 12 May 2002, during the IPI World Congress in Ljubljana, Slovenia (9-12 May 2002), the International Press Institute (IPI), in cooperation with The Freedom Forum, will present its 2002 Free Media Pioneer Award to Danas, the independent Belgrade daily newspaper.
Launched on 9 June 1997 by 17 editors and journalists from leading independent media, Danas (Today) has managed to provide an accurate, impartial view of events occurring in the region while standing up to constant pressure from the Serbian authorities.
The newspaper withstood threats, administrative harassment, stiff fines and censorship during Slobodan Milosevic’s war on the independent media and was banned by the Serbian Ministry of Information in October 1998 for violating a decree on “Special Measures in Circumstances of NATO’s Threats With Military Attacks Against Our Country”, which banned any coverage deemed “unpatriotic” and forbade reporting that, in the government’s view, fomented “defeatism, panic and fear” in the face of possible Western military intervention over Kosovo. It was able to resume publishing soon after the ban was imposed by registering and printing in Montenegro, where the decree did not apply.
In July 2000, a Danas correspondent, Miroslav Filipovic, was sentenced to seven years in prison for espionage and spreading false information after writing a series of articles that documented atrocities committed by the Yugoslav Army in Kosovo. He was released within days of opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica’s swearing in as the new president of Yugoslavia in October 2000.
Despite the change in government, Danas predicted that the new authorities would be still inclined to treat the media in the same way as their predecessors did under Milosevic and this prediction was soon confirmed. Danas has been verbally attacked by officials on several occasions because of its critical reporting on President Kostunica, but it continues to provide readers in Serbia, Vojvodina, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Macedonia with free and independent news from Yugoslavia while pursuing its declared aim: “To strive for pluralism and dialogue, for the complete and thorough protection of basic human rights, as well as the rights of all sorts of minorities – national, religious, cultural, and others.”
The annual IPI Free Media Pioneer Award was established by IPI, the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, in 1996 to honour individuals or organisations who have fought against great odds to ensure freer and more independent media in their country. The Award is co-sponsored by the US-based Freedom Forum, a non-partisan, international foundation dedicated to press freedom and free speech.
Previous winners of the Free Media Pioneer Award are: Malaysiakini.com, Malaysia (2001); IPYS – Press and Society Institute, Peru (2000); EFJA – Ethiopian Free Press Journalists’ Association, Ethiopia (1999); Radio B-92, Yugoslavia (1998); AJI – Alliance of Independent Journalists, Indonesia (1997); and NTV, Russia (1996).
