{"id":32709,"date":"2022-02-14T11:26:09","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T09:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/?p=32709"},"modified":"2022-07-22T17:48:35","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T15:48:35","slug":"vucic-and-online-threats-a-law-crippled-by-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/vucic-and-online-threats-a-law-crippled-by-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"Vu\u010di\u0107 and Online Threats: A Law Crippled by Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2017, Igor Besermenji<\/strong> was working as a journalist for the Autonomija<\/em> portal when he received a threat on Facebook<\/em> in relation to an article he wrote.<\/p>

“Igor, you fascist scum, leave Serbia or you will disappear.”<\/p>

Besermenji says he received multiple threats at the time and that this was just one of them. The man who threatened him admitted his guilt and signed a confession agreement.<\/p>

Before that happened, Besermenji had to give a statement at the Special Prosecutor\u2019s Office for High-Tech Crime<\/em> (VTK). This is standard procedure \u2013 a series of questions are asked, including whether you know the person who threatened you, whether you have been threatened before, and whether you felt fear.<\/p>

“It seems to me that they are always trying to lead the conversation into getting an answer as to whether you actually feel like you\u2019re in danger because of the threat,” Besermenji points out.<\/p>

Threats to journalists, lawyers, police officers, the President and other high-ranking state officials are more severely sanctioned by the Criminal Code than threats to other citizens. For example, threatening the President or a journalist can range from six months to five years in prison.<\/p>

However, the people making threats can only be punished if the persons damaged, i.e. journalists and everyone else, say in a statement to the prosecution that they felt fear \u2013 precisely what Besermenji did.<\/p>

In order to see how the judiciary handled cases involving Serbian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107<\/strong> compared to other cases, journalists from the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia<\/em> (CINS) looked into 47 decisions of the Higher Court in Belgrade<\/em>\u00a0made in the period between January 2018 and the end of 2021. More than half of those decisions \u2013 25 to be exact \u2013 involved threats made to Vu\u010di\u0107.<\/p>

The research has shown that people were punished even though the prosecution, unlike in other cases, took no statement from Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 about whether he felt fear due to the threats, which experts believe was a necessary precondition.<\/p>

Aleksandar Olenik<\/strong>, a lawyer who defended a woman accused of threatening Vu\u010di\u0107 in a case that CINS has already written about, says that in that way, the President is given privileges that other citizen\u2019s don\u2019t have. According to him, this is an attempt to intimidate everyone who uses social media because it is the only type of media that Vu\u010di\u0107 does not control:<\/p>

“Unfortunately, the prosecution has become an apparatus for spreading fear and intimidating citizens \u2013 not with the intention to give the President privileges, but to use fear to discourage people from further commenting on social media.”<\/p>

Double standards<\/h2>

Suspects pleaded guilty and signed plea agreements in 16 of the 25 completed proceedings involving threats made to President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107. In four cases, the Higher Court<\/em> passed convictions, most of which were later overturned on appeal. In two cases, decisions on mandatory psychiatric treatment were made, with no further sanctions, while defendants were acquitted in three cases.<\/p>

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