
A journalist with the Juzne Vesti news portal in the southern city of Nis has been questioned by the police who demanded that he reveal the source of a series of stories about abuses of power in the city’s Medijana municipality.
Journalist Stefan Markovic was summoned to a municipal police station for questioning after charges were filed against him by Medijana municipality spokeswoman Dusanka Kitanovic.
Juzne Vesti said that this was a new strategy by the municipal authorities following the series of articles about irregularities and refusal to respond to questions by the Medijana administration.
Markovic’s interrogation at the Medijana police station was ordered by the prosecution. He was told to reveal the source of the allegations made in his articles but he refused.
The interrogation drew critical reactions from the Independent Journalists’s Association of Serbia (NUNS) and the outgoing Commissioner for Information of Public Importance Rodoljub Sabic.
NUNS President Slavisa Lekic said that under the law, journalists are not obliged to reveal their sources while Commissioner Sabic said there was no justification to the questioning of a journalist about his sources.