Threats to Tanjug journalists by Pristina separatists impermissible - gov't office

BELGRADE - The Serbian government Office for Kosovo-Metohija condemned in the strongest terms a death threat to Tanjug journalists emailed to the news agency on Monday.

Signed by an individual named "Trim Bardhi", the email said Tanjug journalists would get "a bullet to the back of their heads" the next time they set foot in the territory of Serbia's autonomous province of Kosovo-Metohija.

"Threats to Tanjug journalists and media professionals by people making references to their association with Pristina separatists are impermissible and, as such, must be taken as seriously as possible. Such monstrous death threats to Tanjug journalists are the consequence of an atmosphere of hatred and violence the Albin Kurti regime is creating in Kosovo-Metohija in a conceived and systematic manner," the Office said in a statement.

Not only for the sake of the safety of those who are being threatened, but also in the name of democracy and rule of law, international representatives in the autonomous province of Kosovo-Metohija are obliged to take urgent measures to ensure the sender of the horrifying threat to the Tanjug News Agency is apprehended and prosecuted, the statement said.

"We note that, to date, no light has been shed on the fates of journalists who have become, by all accounts, victims of the very same ideology Kurti is using today to control extremists and chauvinists in Kosovo-Metohija. The multiple desecrations of a memorial plaque the Journalists' Association of Serbia has been erecting year after year on the site of the kidnapping of Radio Pristina journalists Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic is a proof that that ideology is alive and a real threat to all who think differently and dare to oppose the Greater Albania projects of the Kurti regime," the statement noted.

The Office for Kosovo-Metohija added that Serbia would use all means available to protect the right to freedom of speech and opinion "although Kurti has abolished that right for Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija a long time ago and his ideological followers are now trying to do the same in central Serbia as well."