CDCS Asks Media to Pay Attention to Positive Examples of Cooperation with Minorities

CRCD

26 February 2008

The Centre for Development of Civil Society CDCS appeals to Serbian media to pay greater attention to events that contribute to reduction of numbers of incidents and attacks on members of ethnic minority groups.

One such case was the February 23 visit to Zrenjanin by Petar Lađević, Head of the Government Human and Minority Rights Bureau, during which he met with ethnic Albanians and Gorani whose houses and business facilities were subject to attacks over the previous several days.

Lađević aimed to determine the facts, offer support to the victims of attacks and convince them that they are equal members of the community, promise them compensation of damages and preparation of prevention programmes.

CDCS believes that most of the national print and electronic media made serious omission when they failed to cover the event in greater detail.

- Reporting on similar examples of commendable practices by the head of a very important government agency is a message with potentially huge effects in the area of prevention of attacks, and not only on national minorities, says CDCS.