1. The newspaper and publishing enterprise DAN GRAF of Belgrade, Vatroslava Jagica No. 3, is banned temporarily to publish a daily DANAS, starting at 10.00 a.m. on October 13, 1998.
2. The working equipment belonging to the newspaper and publishing enterprise DAN GRAF of Belgrade, Vatroslava Jagica 3, will be temporarily seized, and the list of equipment required to publish the DANAS daily would be made. The equipment would be kept on the place where it had been found, namely in the working premises of the publisher, from where all the staff should be moved out and the premises vax sealed by the person authorized by the Information Ministry ...
3. Circulation of DANAS published after the above ruling is being brought will be seized ...
The ruling doesn`t say that the newspaper is banned because of lies, but because it is "fomenting fear, panic and defeatism" and writes "mockingly" about the Serbian government. As examples, the Ministry cites that DANAS published the writing of the German press on Kosovo, the statement of the U.S. Air Force based in Avian, as well as the information that a newspaper from Subotica was published with eight blank pages protesting in this way against the Serbian government`s Decree. The same ruling was brought at that time against another two Belgrade dailies, and all leading world agencies, radio and TV stations, and neswpapers had reported on this scandal.
Only two months later, in the interview to the Washington Post, the President of the State says:
"We have never banned newspapers in this country."
The journalist insists that recently, however, some were banned, but the President has no intention to change anything in his answer. "That`s not true," he says, but "some newspapers or some journalists had been fined because of the lies."
It is now less important if the cited ruling with the minister Aleksandar Vucic's signature is a sufficient prove to the magistrate to aquit us if we conclude that the President is not saying the truth. Long ago it has become clear that in this part of the world the memory is very short, so that the nation can still be sold the apple sauce. But what are we going to do with the world that read, listened and saw the information about hundreds of journalists thrown out into street and deprived of their right to work, about banned newspapers - not that they had lied - because they refused to sing in the choir. If the President doesn`t speak truth about such an ordinary fact - are the readers ready to trust without reserve to some other facts and judgements in this long interview.
These questions should be asked in time, otherwise the tomorrow`s answers would be even more painful.