EKOLOŠKI AKTIVISTI U SRBIJI NISU NIČIJE SREDSTVO U PROPAGANDNIM RATOVIMA: ZAHTEV ZA DEMANTOVANJEM NETAČNIH INFORMACIJA OBJAVLJENIH U WALL STREET JOURNAL
Open Letter to WSJ Editorial Team
Regarding the article published in WSJ on Sept. 30, 2024
Written by Julie Steinberg and Georgi Kantchev
To all whom this may concern,
As people who organized, were involved in, or publicly supported the environmental protests in Belgrade, as well as the wider movement against our authoritarian government's deal with mining company Rio Tinto (Serbia was officially labeled a "hybrid regime" by the Freedom House 2023 report, so it's not defined as a democracy anymore), we felt the need to respond to the falsehoods in the article you published about the protests, as it has put our reputations and lives further in danger, after the threats many of us already received:
The WSJ article’s central thesis, that the protests are "fueled" by Russian influence and propaganda, is simply untrue. This could have been fact-checked with a few simple Google searches, since Russian regime has officially decided to support the Serbian government against the protests. The Kremlin's only reactions so far have been stern support for the autocracy in Serbia, and they have labeled the protests as "an attempt by Western powers, under the guise of good intentions, to use puppet media and NGOs to influence the population of Serbia to turn against the current government." This is a direct quote from Putin's spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, with the full statement in the link below:
https://www.rts.rs/lat/vesti/politika/5507652/marija-zaharova-litijum-srbija.html
Furthermore, all of the information could have been cross-checked through sources within Serbia itself. The conspiracy theories mentioned in the article (such as that the mine will secretly be extracting uranium - an element which was actually excavated elsewhere in Serbia for over two decades) are simply not present in the mainstream narrative around the protests, nor even in social media (a fact that could also easily have been checked).
Since you quoted the US Ambassador to Serbia, Mr. Christopher Hill, this came as a surprise to us given that Mr. Hill is surely acquainted with the vast amount of pro-Putin propaganda repeated day and night in Serbian government-controlled media and tabloids, oftentimes wholeheartedly supported by President Vučić, a former member of the fundamentally pro-Russian Serbian Radical Party, founded in the 90s by a convicted war criminal, Vojislav Šešelj, whos' ideals Vučić promoted for decades. To omit any mention of this in the local context means giving up on all aspects of professional journalism in what should have otherwise been a serious news investigation.
Involvement of any kind of pro-Kremlin or right-wing factions in the environmental protests is either non-existent or present as a margin of statistical error. On the other hand, the organizers of these protests (none of whom have supported Putin nor have any relation to Putin) have been intimidated, received death threats, were arrested, had their property seized, homes invaded, and appeared on the infamous list of "eco-terrorists" created by phantom organizations that repeat the lies from the Serbian tabloids. Thus, from a local point of view, the protesters were targeted by both the pro-Russian and pro-government media, and now, in addition to that, by the Wall Street Journal without any sufficient reason.
Among those of us labeled "traitors," "Western spies," and "terrorists" by the regime of the Serbian autocratic government are university professors with international reputations and careers, accomplished artists and athletes, MPs, and students—none of whom have criminal records or histories of violence.
Despite any differences in political opinions, we are acting on behalf of our professional and scientific duties rather than in the interests of any state. Our professional and private ethics do not allow us to be instrumentalized in such a way by any of the powers that be. Even to imply such a thing is debasing and insulting at best. We are perfectly aware of the geopolitical situation, but here and now, we are united by one thing and one thing alone: opposing the environmentally and economically disastrous proposed deal with Rio Tinto.
Given Rio Tinto’s recent and distant history of environmental and human rights degradation, which has already started to increasingly occur in Serbia as of the last three months, and of which we have unfortunately been the targets of, we all stand firmly against any forms of neo-colonial exploitation of Serbia, and our opinions are based on decades of rigorous scientific work that proves the proposed mine would permanently and irreversibly devastate Serbia's ecosystem:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-68072-9
As the entire rationale for the mine was to "diminish Chinese influence in Serbia”, we must also remind the Wall Street Journal that the State-owned Aluminium Company of China, Ltd. “ChInalco”, meaning that Rio Tinto is itself not devoid of foreign influence.
In short: even if one turns a blind eye to a rising dictatorship in Serbia for the idea of profit, before one publishes an article like this and puts people's lives in further danger—at least it ought to try to adhere to the standards of professional journalism and do the actual research required for the topic at hand. Since this was missing and that we have been the object of said article, we demand a public apology.
We stand against word-twisting and using the protests as fuel for propaganda wars, or worse, to satisfy a single viewpoint - that of a private corporation - at the expense of professional journalism. Especially after the fact that the majority of Serbs have clearly and vocally said "no" to the project not this August, but many times before.
Stevan Filipović, film director and professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade
dr Aleksandar Matković, research associate at the Institute of Economic Sciences, Belgrade
Stevan Filipović, reditelj i docent na Fakultetu dramskih umetnosti Kontaktirajte autora peticije