Veran Matic on Fri, 2 Oct 1998 09:15:48 +0100 |
[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]
Syndicate: <nettime> URGENT: YUGOSLAV AUTHORITIES BAN INTERNATIONAL CONF |
YUGOSLAV AUTHORITIES BAN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE ANEM Press Release, Belgrade--September 30, 1998 Upon receiving information from the Council of Europe that the Yugoslav authorities had failed to give any guarantees as to the issuance of visas to the participants of the Broadcasting for a Democratic Europe conference, which was to take place on October 2 and 3 in Belgrade, the Association of Independent Electronic Media in FR Yugoslavia (ANEM) was on Wednesday forced to postpone its conference. The Chairman-In-Office of the Committee of the Ministers of the Council of Europe, Mr. Giorgos Papandreou, said in a statement on Wednesday that he had had the intention of attending this conference, which was to be held under the auspices of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, but that due to the refusal of the Yugoslav authorities to grant entry visas to a large number of foreign participants in this conference, he considered himself obliged to cancel his visit. He expressed full support to the organisers of the conference and shared the efforts put forward for the strenghtening of the role of media in Yugoslavia. Mr Papandreou concluded he would continue to act energetically in favour His statement concluded that we would continue to act energetically in favour of the Council of Europe achieving positive results in respect of the multi-faceted crisis in Yugoslavia. ANEM regrets that the Yugoslav authorities have refused to act in a civilised and becoming manner notwithstanding the fact that top representatives of the Council of Europe, including Mr Giorgos Papandreou, the Chairman-In-Office of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and Greek Alternate Foreign Ministers, had confirmed their attendance. This de facto ban of the conference is contradictory to the Yugoslav expressed wish to join the Council of Europe as its fully-fledged member, especially given that the Broadcasting for a Democratic Europe conference was to be the first ever conference organised in FR Yugoslavia under the auspices of the Council of Europe. Such behavior of the Yugoslav authorities suggests that they have abandoned the idea of Yugoslavia's be re-integration into the European family of states. ANEM, as the organizer of the conference, along with a majority of Yugoslav citizens, refuses to accept this position. ANEM remains determined to host the conference in the nearest possible future. Veran Matic ANEM Chairman -- Veran Matic, Editor in Chief tel: +381-11-322-9109 Radio B92, Belgrade, Yugoslavia fax: +381-11-322-4378 Radio B92 Official Web Site --- http://www.opennet.org/ --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl