A dangerous business

SEEMO, a network of editors, media executives and leading journalists from South East Europe and an affiliate of the International Press Institute (IPI), issued a statement at the end of November outlining recent incidents.

On November 27, Drago Hedl, a columnist for the Croatian Jutarnji list, received an SMS where the sender threatened to "massacre" him, just as a member of parliament accused of war crimes was holding a news conference during which he singled out Hedl's writings for criticism.

Other threats included those made against Hrvoje Appelt, a Croatian journalist for the Zagreb-based weekly Globus. On November 20, Appelt found a device that turned out to be a fake bomb under his car. Appelt has in the past published several articles about smuggling activities in Croatia.

"These threats follow several physical attacks against journalists in Croatia during 2008, underscoring the seriousness of the risks faced by the media in that country," SEEMO said.

The violence peaked with the October 23 murders of Ivo Pukanic, journalist and owner of the NCL Media Group in Zagreb, and Niko Franjic, marketing director of the newspaper Nacional, which is published by NCL.

Threats have also been issued in Serbia. Slavko Savic and Cedomir Savic of RTV Kursumlija were recently threatened by a group of local politicians and five army reservists.

Clive Leviev-Sawyer

This is an edited version of an article originally published in The Sofia Echo