BIRN Montenegro Executive Director Barred from Entering Serbia

BIRN Montenegro Executive Director Barred from Entering Serbia Vuk Maras. Photo: BIRN. Vuk Maras, executive director of BIRN’s Montenegro country organisation, was barred from entering Serbia at Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport on Monday. Maras said that the written decision explained that he was being refused entry in a “protective removal measure, a security measure for expelling a foreigner”. He said the decision is probably a counter-measure after the Montenegrin authorities’ barred the owner and editor-in-chief of Serbian pro-government Informer television, Dragan J. Vucicevic, from entering Montenegro. “I believe that this is a continuation of Belgrade’s ‘reciprocal measures’ towards people from the media community in Montenegro, and that I ‘earned’ this ban because of the criticisms about media freedom in Serbia that I made publicly in the media in Montenegro. Of course, I stand behind them 100 per cent,” Maras said. “The decision of the regime in Serbia to retaliate against those who objectively, professionally and impartially do their job causes even more damage, because it is evident that there is great panic when it comes to anyone who thinks freely,” he added. BIRN strongly criticised the refusal to grant Maras entry. “This decision by the Serbian authorities to prevent Vuk Maras from entering the country is unacceptable and represents a blow to media freedom,” BIRN said in a statement. Maras said was travelling to Rome but decided to enter Serbia in order to visit central Belgrade as he had a long gap between flights. He described his treatment by border police at the airport as “kind and professional”. He was due to be deported to Montenegro later on Monday. He has announced that he will appeal against the decision in court. Montenegrin journalist Petar Komnenic, creator of the show ‘Nacisto’ on TV Vijesti, was also barred from entering Serbia last week. Informer’s editor Dragan J. Vucicevic was barred from entering Montenegro on June 26 after he called Montenegrin state institutions “anti-Serb” and likened them to Croatian World War II-era fascists on Informer TV, accusing them of directly endangering the life of Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic. On June 26, Vucic announced what he described as reciprocal measures against people “who engaged in hybrid warfare against Serbia”. After Komnenic was banned from entering Serbia, Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic said that the journalistic approaches of Komnenic and Vucicevic cannot be compared to each other. Spajic argued that Vucicevic “continually insults Montenegro, its citizens and state officials in his public appearances and with the content he publishes”.