NUNS condemns threats to Tanjug journalists, welcomes swift reaction by authorities

BELGRADE - The Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS) said it condemned in the strongest terms threats to Tanjug men and women journalists emailed to the news agency on Monday evening and welcomed a swift reaction by the Ministry of Information and the Department for High-Technology Crime at the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade.

"We believe that no journalist's safety should come under threat as a result of their doing their journalistic work," NUNS said in a statement.

It added that, in this case, the Ministry of Information and the Department for High-Technology Crime of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office had demonstrated they were "quite able to determine the location the threats come from, in the shortest possible period of time."

"That is why we expect them to act the same way in similar cases in the future, especially when threats are coming from the territory over which they have authority," the statement said.

Earlier, Serbian Minister of Information and Telecommunications Dejan Ristic said the threat had been emailed from Albanian territory and that it was the most serious one a Serbian media outlet had received in years.

An email signed by an individual named "Trim Bardhi" 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.