RESPONSE TO THE ATTACK ON JOURNALIST OLIVERA LAKIC (instead of congratulating to the citizens for 9th May)
- Published: Wednesday, 09 May 2018 17:24
Instead of celebrating freedom and right of all citizens to enjoy the achievements of European unification, today we must defend basic life and social values.
European Movement strongly condemns brutal and cowardly attack on the journalist OliveraLakic. We demand from the police and the prosecutor's office to urgently conduct a full investigation, detection and the most severe punishment of the perpetrators of this serious criminal act. We also invite the Ministry of the Interior Affairs and the National Security Agency to urgently carry out security surveys for other journalists and editors who may potentially be targets of these or similar attacks, thus to provide them with full protection at work and in life.
We all have the right to be dissatisfied with reporting done by media and journalists, but no one has the right to jeopardize their freedom and rights to work and opinion, and especially no one has the right to jeopardize the physical integrity and life of journalists. Such attacks are not only an attack on journalists, but also on the safety and free life of all citizens of Montenegro.
Authorities and ruling structures have the greatest responsibility to protect journalists from such oppressions, because the attack on OliveraLakic is an attack on freedom of speech in Montenegro in general. The right of journalists to work freely and to report in accordance with objective, but also subjective professional and personal standards and beliefs, as long as this reporting gets around within legal frameworks, is one of the basic values which Montenegro should and must share with all contemporary European societies.
We are inviting all political entities, both those who are ruling and those from opposition parties, to condemn this crime and savagery through their statements, and to support the free work of all media and journalists, as well as, with their authority, to defend their right on free reporting, regardless of differences in political perceptions, values, or attitudes toward editorial policies.