Serbian Govt Takes Control of Information Flow About Pandemic

All local crisis headquarters and medical institutions in Serbia must send any information about the coronavirus pandemic to the central Crisis Staff led by Prime Minister Ana Brnabic – which will then inform the public about anything regarding COVID-19, the government in Belgrade has decided.

“Mayors and municipal presidents and emergency staffs of local government units are obliged to direct all information regarding the condition and consequences of COVID-19 … exclusively to the [national] Crisis Staff, which will carry out the necessary checks and take appropriate measures to inform the public in a timely and accurate manner,” the decision taken on Sunday says.

“Information on health measures taken and other information related to the treatment of COVID-19 … given to the public by unauthorized persons cannot be considered accurate and verified,” the government added by way of explanation, going on to warn of the “possibility of applying regulations relating to liability and legal consequences for the spread of misinformation in a state of emergency.”

As a result, local crisis headquarters in Serbia may no longer inform local communities of developments directly. Media outlets on Tuesday were also notified that they will no longer can get information from local authorities directly.

Dejan Kovacevic, president of the municipality of Gornji Milanovac, told a press conference that while he understood the new rules, local government units will still hold press conferences “as needed about what they have done, and are doing, to mitigate the spread of the virus.

Some NGOs in Serbia have voiced unease with the move to control the flow of information, saying that the solution is not in line with the advice of United Nations experts, or of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has called for journalists to be allowed to work without obstacles “in order to provide citizens with access to key information”.

Serbia imposed state of emergency on March 15. By April 1, 23 people had died from complications caused by COVID-19 and 900 cases of infection were confirmed in total.

Hungarian Editors Need Permission to Report on ‘Sensitive’ Topics

The Brussels-based website Politico has obtained several internal emails that confirm the long-suspected growth of censorship in Hungary’s state media. 

State-owned outlets have a big role in the Hungarian media, as they include several TV and radio stations and MTI, the only Hungarian news agency.

According to the leaked emails, state media bosses need special permission from “higher above” to report on topics like Greta Thunberg, the teenage Swedish climate activist. 

Reports on several other “sensitive” topics, such as migration, European terrorism, Brussels, church issues and on parliamentary, presidential and local elections in the “EU+” (member states and neighboring countries) also need to be sent for final approval. 

Journalists in the state media don’t know who makes the final decisions on the articles whose subject matter is on the list, Politico says.

The emails obtained by the outlet date from the second half of October 2019 and are signed by senior editors of the state media. One of them is Sándor Végh. 

The emails appear to focus on news coverage. Emails also confirm that several topics were banned explicitly from mention in the Hungarian state media – as it was reported previously by Népszava, a Hungarian daily. 

Journalists are not allowed to report on Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, NGOs that are critical of the Hungarian government’s politics, especially its hostile policies on refugees and migrants.

It also turned out that reporting on Thunberg is not always allowed. An email that ordered staffers to ask permission to report on her was sent on August 14, when the activist started her trip to New York to speak at the United Nations. Hungarian state media did not publish anything about Thunberg’s trip.

The World Press Freedom Index compiled by the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders classifies Hungary’s media as only “partly free”. The country is now ranked in 87th place, and the pressure on the free press is clearly getting stronger. Last year Hungary was 73rd on the list, while in 2010, when the current government gained power, it ranked in 23rd place.

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