While issuing the official response to citizens who reported the Serbian Progressive Party promotional video, the Regulatory Authority of Electronic Media published 189 email addresses of the complainants. In this way, personal data visible from numerous email addresses became available without the consent of the person to whom they relate.
At the session held on February 6th 2019, the Regulatory Authority Council passed on the decision rejecting as unfounded complaints filed by more than 750 citizens because media outlets TV Prva and TV Happy broadcast a promotional video containing explicit political contents and political messages, and having a political impact on the viewers – which is directly contrary to articles 12 and 14 of the Law on Advertising which forbid covert and parallel advertising.
On February 5th, the organisation CRTA launched the initiative #ProbudiREM (Wake up the REM) prompting all interested citizens to file complaints to the REM via an online form because TV Prva at 10:18 on February 3rd and TV Happy at 21:50 on February 4th broadcast the Serbian Progressive Party video displaying political contents.
Freedom House, an independent international organization, announced that the status of Serbia in 2018 changed from free to the partly free country. We are witnessing significant and rapid centralization of power in the hands of one branch of government – the executive, and closure of institutions before the interests of the public. Institutions in Serbia and mechanisms established to protect citizens and public interest actually serve to fulfill some other interests in society
The Committee for Culture and Information has not yet initiated the procedure of selection of the new Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection and has not received any proposals for the selection of the Commissioner, was stated in the response issued by the National Assembly upon request submitted by YUCOM.
Several organisations have sent today a request to the competent Committee for Culture and Information urging them to respond whether the procedure of selection of the new Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection was initiated and who the potential candidates are. They also insisted that the candidates’ biographies be publicly published.
Democracy should be understood as a movement, as one process, and not as a monolith. Anyone who tries to approach the ideal of the democratic system falls into frustration, because it is afraid that it will not be reached as such. A strong and stable democracy has many steps, because democracy is progress
Civil society organisations devoted to realisation of the rule of law, democracy and civil rights urged yet again the competent Committee for Culture and Information of the Assembly to initiate as soon as possible the procedure of selection of the new Commissioner and publicly proposed well-defined criteria for selection of candidates.
The quality of the election process in Lucani was very poor, while the atmosphere on the election day was not in accordance with standards for free and fair elections due to identified cases of pressure on voters, the CRTA election observation mission assessed.
