The latest issue of NIN weekly has hit the newsstands today with the cover that depicts a Nazi concentration camp with a caption “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Sets You Free”) / “Work Camp Serbia”.
The cover page announces an article in the magazine about the relations between the state authorities and investors and says that “investors are allowed to do anything they please, even break the law”. The cover caused a storm of reactions among the politicians, most of them criticizing the poor decision made by the weekly’s editors.
The Speaker of the Serbian National Parliament, Maja Gojkovic said: “Such cover should be condemned by ever normal and decent Serbian citizen, as well as the society on the whole”.
The Deputy PM, Zorana Mihajlovic also commented on the cover: “I can understand a magazine having a provocative cover page to attract readers and for certain media to have a different, even critical stance towards the government. However, I cannot understand how is freedom of the press used to compare your own country with the Nazi concentration camp”.
The first Deputy PM, Ivica Dacic said: “The hypocrisy and the insolence of this magazine, which is owned by foreigners, in comparing foreign investors in Serbia with Nazis and the workers with camp prisoners are unheard of”.
NIN’s Editor-in-Chief, Milan Culibrk gave a following statement yesterday apropos the cover page: “The cover page of the latest issue of NIN has caused stormy reactions. It was not our intention at all to insult the survivors of the Holocaust but to criticize the Serbian government for not adhering to the existing labour and strike laws which it has drafted itself. Regardless of our intention, obviously some readers were hurt by the provocative cover illustration and we apologize to them”.
(BizLife, 20.07.2017)
http://www.bizlife.rs/aktuelno/vesti-dana/koga-je-sve-pogodila-naslovna-strana-nedeljnika-nin/
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