Radovan Karadzic, Sarajevo is not your city, and you have no right to say that it is, just as you do not have the right to say in public, even if it’s in court, that someone has dug up bones around Bosnia and brought them to Srebrenica to make a fake graveyard. This is insulting.
Partizan Fans Arrested Over Journalist Threats
Belgrade | 18 December 2009 | Bojana Barlovac
The supporter group "Alkatraz" shouted offensive chants aimed at the reporter and played around with a naked doll, which was supposed to represent Brankica Stankovic, during the game. They also shouted death threats such as "fare the same as Curuvija", referring to publisher and journalist Slavko Curuvija, who was shot and killed in Belgrade ten years ago.
Similar events took place a week ago when Partizan basketball fans shouted insulting chants against Stankovic during a Euroleague game between their club and Turkey's Efes Pilsen.
Stankovic, who is behind the show Insider, received death threats posted on internet websites after the airing of a show two weeks ago, which listed a number of unpunished offences allegedly committed by football hooligans, including drug trafficking, attacks and murder.
Football hooligans are widely blamed for the burning of the US embassy in Belgrade when Kosovo declared its independence in February 2008, as well as for a series of recent attacks on foreigners in Belgrade including the fatal beating of French football fan Brice Taton.
The administration of the football club Partizan condemned the death threats against the journalist that were shown by a group of fans at the football game in Belgrade.
"It is a misuse of sporting events and all those who participated in that should not be in sports arenas (...) It is an act of violence that cannot be justified and we expectat the authorities to react," the Partizan statement read.
Representatives of Serbia's Association of Journalists, UNS, and the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia, NUNS, also strongly condemned the threats.
Earlier last week, Serbian police detained seven persons on suspicion of having threatened the reporter. Stankovic told Balkan Insight that the number of threats had decreased after the arrest and police protection she received.
For more information, please see: Attacks on Balkan Journalists Rise in 2009.
