European media watchdog condemns bombing of journalist' home

Photo: European media watchdog condemns bombing of journalist' home

A southeast European media watchdog criticized bombing of the home of popular Serbian journalist and urged Prime  Minister Vojislav Kostunica to prevent further attacks.

A hand grenade exploded on Saturday outside the home of prominent journalist and government critic Dejan Anastasijevic, causing damage but no injuries, police said.

SEEMO, the Austrian-based network of editors, media executives and journalists, said in statement that it "strongly condemns" the attack on Anastasijevic, who writes for the liberal Belgrade-based weekly Vreme, and appeared as a prosecution witness in 2002 at the U.N. war crimes trial of former President Slobodan Milosevic.

In the protest addressed to Serbian conservative Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, the group said "this bomb attack ... was clearly an attempt to kill the journalist and his family."

Activists of the pro-Western Liberal Democratic Party on Monday blocked traffic for five minutes in Belgrade and several other Serbian towns to protest what they said was government hesitation to prevent nationalist attacks against free media.

SEEMO urged Kostunica "to do everything in your power to investigate this case and to prevent such cases from occurring in the future."

Serbia has seen an alarming increase of attacks on government critics amid a surge in nationalism over prospects that Kosovo, its southern ethnic Albanian-populated province, could be granted independence in a U.N.-led process.