FWD: Pressrelease: Sound of B92 Banned

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Re: my earlier mail "B92: now under Yugoslav government control?", just found this in my mailbox for devel-l@american.edu.

Regards,


Cliff Cunnington
Delft, Holland

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From:         Drazen Pantic <drazen@OPENNET.ORG>
Subject:      Pressrelease: Sound of B92 Banned
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Pressrelease Radio B92 Amsterdam, April 2, 1999


Sound of B92 Banned

Government officials have shut down radio B92 - silencing
the last independent voice in Serbia. In the early hours of
Friday morning, April 2, police officers arrived to seal the
station's offices, and ordered all staff to cease work and
leave the premises immediately.

A court official accompanied the police. He delivered a
decision from the government-controlled Council of Youth to
the station's manager of 6 years - Sasa Mirkovic - that he
had been dismissed. The council of youth replaced Sasa
Mirkovic with Aleksandar Nikacevic, a member of Milosevic's
ruling Socialist Party of Serbia, thus bringing B92 under
government control.

B92 has been the only source of alternative information in
and from Serbia since the start of NATO airstrikes against
Yugoslavia 10 days ago. Although a ban on the station's
transmitter in the morning of the first day of airstrikes -
Wednesday March 24 - took the station off the air, B92 has
continued to broadcast news and information via the Internet
and satellite. On the same day as Federal
Telecommunications' officials seized the station's
transmitter police officers also detained the station's
chief editor - Veran Matic. He was released unharmed and
without explanation eight hours later. Since the
transmission ban on B92 the station has been heavily policed
and has been operating under severe restrictions.

The ban on B92 is the latest in a series of crackdowns on
free media in the past week. The wave of media repression
has resulted in the closure of a large number of members of
the B92-led independent broadcasting network - ANEM, and all
independent press. The prominent independent
Albanian-language newspaper and radio station Koha ditore
was also closed down last week, as have been all other
independent media in Kosovo, including Radio 21 since March
24.

Since the launch of B92 news broadcasts on the web last
Wednesday its site has had some 15 million visitors. Support
sites such as http://helpb92.xs4all.nl report 16,000
visitors per day. Local radio stations across Europe have
been re-broadcasting b92 audio signal from the Internet.

B92 is the leading independent broadcaster in Yugoslavia,
and established the national re-broadcasting network of 35
radio and 18 television stations - ANEM - in 1996. The
station was due to celebrate its 10th anniversary this May.



-------------------
Editorial note, not for publication:
For futher information contact:
Julia Glyn-Pickett
Representative for Radio B92
tel: +31 20 4272127
email: juliab92@xs4all.nl

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