Tabloid witch hunt prompts journalists to turn to European Court of Human Rights

Journalists Tamara Skrozza, Antonela Riha and Vukašin Obradović, together with civil activist Ilir Gaši, filed a petition with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in response to the witch hunt campaign against them in media companies that are particularly pro-government – TV Pink and tabloid newspaper Informer.

These pro-government media outlets once labelled them as foreign mercenaries seeking to violently create chaos in the country and murder the then prime minister, and now president, Aleksandar Vucic.

This group of public figures filed criminal charges against these media outlets, accusing them of racial and other forms of discrimination and violation of principles of equality, but the charges were rejected by the prosecution. Their subsequent constitutional appeal to the Constitutional Court of Serbia also proved ineffectual.

Having exhausted all legal means in Serbia, they addressed a petition to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. As stated in the petition, their right to a fair trial has been violated, while their right to free expression and an effective legal remedy have also been imperilled, and they were simultaneously deprived of the right for their private lives to be respected, or for their psychological and physical integrity to be protected.