Not sure if this has been reported here.
>>
Subject:
FC: Internet B92 Serbian radio station shuts down
Date:
Fri, 02 Apr 1999 14:00:50 -0500
From:
Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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.
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology
To subscribe: send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this
text:
subscribe politech
More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------<<
===
--
Tom Mohr
usually here: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
sometimes here: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
