At 09:05 13/10/00 -0400, Proyect wrote:
>Burford:
> >Had he read rather than skimmed the report on the lying imperialist
> >web-site he would have read not that Filipovic had been imprisoned for
> >writing for an enemy publication:-
>
>"TODAY IS the day Miroslav Filopovic has been waiting for - but with little
>sense of hope or pleasure. For the past two months the Serb journalist has
>been in custody, charged with espionage. Today he will face a military
>court in the southern Serbian town of Nis, and if found guilty tomorrow,
>when the trial ends, he faces between three and 15 years in prison.
>Filipovic, 49, is the first Serb journalist to be tried for espionage in
>decades, and the case has become a cause of concern for human rights groups.
>
>"The basis of the charges is a series of articles considered by the
>authorities to have "undermined the defence of the country". These include
>one that was published in The Independent, detailing atrocities allegedly
>committed by Serbian forces in Kosovo." (The Independent, July 25, 2000)
The journalistic claim of the Independent that one of his articles was
published by them, is not the same as Proyect's charge that he wrote "for"
the Independent, and still less an argument why he should be imprisoned for
7 years.
Further web searches show that the reasoning of the 2-day trial is not
exactly clear because it was largely secret, but the main summary seems to
be that Filipovic published a series of articles in Agence France Presse
and in the publication of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting. No
doubt for Proyect these are also a "filthy lying warmongering rag" and
backed by the forces of capitalism, like the Wall Street Journal he was
quoting yesterday.
So while making the fullest possible use of the global capitalist media,
especially through Lexis-Nexis, Proyect thinks that a Serb journalist
belongs in prison of course for having his articles published in these organs.
Proyect is possibly confident that the espionage law was not being used to
suppress the truth of chauvinist atrocities by Serbs and to intimidate Serb
media into concealing these reports??
Filipovic worked "for" the Belgrade independent publication Danas. Does
Proyect imagine Filipovic would have preferred to publish in Paris and
London, rather than Belgrade, if he could have published in Belgrade?
No, robustly enough, it is clear for Proyect that
>Of course he belongs in prison
The clearest account of the legal issues I can find is from Amnesty
International. This implies Filipovic got 5 years for espionage, and 2 for
spreading false information. It would be interesting if Proyect defends the
five years for "espionage" whether he also defends the 2 years imprisonment
for spreading false information. Does Proyect claim the information is
false? Or that it is *true* but that it should be suppressed because its
publication would undermine a regime allegedly trying to build socialism.
Amnesty International LONDON, 21.08.2000 -
>Miroslav Filipovic, journalist for the independent newspaper Danas,
>correspondent for the London-based Institute of War and Peace Reporting
>(IWPR), and Kraljevo correspondent for Agence France Presse (AFP), was
>imprisoned on 26 July 2000 for seven years on charges of �espionage� and
>of �spreading false information�.
>
>he was sentenced by Nis Military Court. He was found guilty of both
>�espionage� under Article 128 (paragraphs 1 and 4) of the Federal Criminal
>Code and of �spreading false information� under Article 218 of the Serbian
>Criminal Code, and sentenced to five and two years� imprisonment
>respectively. The sentences are to be served consecutively. Since the case
>allegedly concerned �state secrets� no details were made available about
>the charges, evidence or progress of the trial, part of which was held in
>camera. ...
>
>Miroslav Filipovic appears to have been indicted as the result of a number
>of articles he had written, one of which reportedly alleged eye-witness
>accounts of human rights violations carried out by members of Serbian and
>Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) forces in Kosovo, and which were
>published by the London-based Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). ...
>
> He was convicted on charges of �espionage� and of �spreading false
> information�, having been accused of �collecting data representing
> military secrets with the intention to sell them to foreign institutions
> like IWPR and AFP�..
>
>His accounts of alleged eye-witness reports of human rights violations by
>members of the Yugoslav army and Serbian police and paramilitaries in
>Kosovo were described as �spreading false information with the intention
>of provoking disturbance among the citizens and jeopardizing public peace
>and order�.
>
>... Under FRY law, espionage is the communication of secrets to any
>foreign organization, or any person working for one, and allows wide
>discretion in the definition of a �secret�.. Amnesty International is
>concerned that the law is open to such wide interpretation that it has
>been used as a measure to diminish freedom of expression rather than as a
>legitimate defence of the security of the state.
>
>Though, under Article 14 of the ICCPR �The press and the public may be
>excluded from all or part of a trial for reasons of morals, public order
>(ordre public) or national security in a democratic society�, Amnesty
>International believes that because the espionage law has been used as a
>measure to diminish freedom of expression, rather than as a legitimate
>defence of the security of the state, the trial should have been held in
>public before an independent and impartial tribunal.
>
>On 3 August, Miroslav Filipovic became unwell and was taken to Nis
>military hospital where his heart was monitored for several hours. He has
>an existing heart condition, arrhythmia - an irregular heart-beat..
>Against the advice of the doctor present, he was returned to the prison,
>but on 8 August was transferred to the Belgrade military hospital. Despite
>a diagnosis of chronic arrhythmia, he was returned to Nis military prison
>on Friday 11 August against medical advice. On Monday 14 August, he was
>again transferred from Nis military prison to Nis military hospital. His
>family remain extremely concerned for his health.
[Proyect: "Of course he belongs in prison"]
>Pressure on Journalists and the Media and restrictions of Freedom of
>Expression
>
>Since introduction of the Law on Public Information in 1998, pressure on
>independent journalists and the media in FRY continues to increase. The
>law has been used to impose huge fines on media firms, their owners,
>individual journalists and printing houses. Journalists have been detained
>and questioned while attempting to cover demonstrations against the regime.
>
>Other members of the media jailed for asserting their right to freedom of
>expression include: Neboj�a Ri�ti� sentenced to one year�s imprisonment in
>1999 for displaying a poster protesting at the repression of the media in
>Serbia;
>
> the satirist Boban Militi�, sentenced to five months� imprisonment on 9
> June 2000 for ridiculing President Milo�evi� at a public reading ...
Of course they belong in prison too?
Chris Burford
London
