Zlatko Minic from Transparency Serbia said on Monday that it was clear the television channels which broadcast the ruling party’s video clip which mocks the opposition leaders and protestors, broke the law, the Beta news agency reported.
He called on the Regulatory Authority of Electronic Media (REM) to react, adding that the Law on Electronic Media, which the REM has to abide by, mentions “the ban on political marketing that is not related election campaigns” and that “political parties representation should be void of discrimination”. He also wonders who paid the making of the video clip.
Article 19 of the Law on Funding Political Activities states:”Funds used for financing the regular work of political entities are to be used for the functioning and propagating the ideas of a political subject, including the work done with voters and membership, transport and maintenance costs, promotional costs, promotional material and publications, public opinion research, training, international cooperation, wages and employee benefits, utility expenses, and costs related to other similar activities. “
“The question is who paid for the broadcast of the clip,” Minic wonders and adds that if the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), led by President Aleksandar Vucic, sponsored it, “the issue then is whether that is in line with the Law on Financing Political Activities.”
The SNS has been broadcasting the video mocking the opposition leaders and citizens who had been protesting across Serbia for several weeks. The author of the video remains unknown, with SNS defending the content on the video on the account of „everybody has the right of expressing their opinions“.
Yesterday, head of the Alliance of Serbia, Dragan Djilas assessed today that the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) control TV stations Prva and O2, and as evidence of this, he mentioned the broadcast of a video of that SNS aired on those two TV stations that was offensive to the opposition leaders and citizens who had been protesting.
Djilas stated in a written statement that the day after the protest in Belgrade, TV Prva broadcast the video in question which was said to cost close to 100,000 euro.
(Nova Ekonomija, 04.02.2019)
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