Dear Mrs. Milentijevic,

Intervju weekly reported (issue 405, April 11, 1997) that you told Yuro journalist Jennifer Brown that VREME wasn’t a registered publication and was hiding its sources of income.

Brown asked you: "Does a Serb living in the US who wants to help VREME get the same treatment as you who came from the US and wants to help the information ministry?"

You replied: "I’m not financing anyone and the ministry is a state institution. I could give VREME a million dollars if I wanted to but VREME would have to be registered first and it would have to reveal its sources of income".

Without going into the need for that question and answer, one thing is clear: you implicitly stated that VREME is doing something illegal, against the law and customs. If your statement that we are operating without being registered and hiding our sources of income is taken seriously, and we want to believe that someone will take you seriously, VREME could suffer material damages. Your accusation as Serbian information minister, as someone in a position that obliges you to protect our interests as much as the reputation of the ministry, government and state of Serbia, hurts us morally. The position you are in, and even more so the job you have taken on, includes the fact that you have to be the most responsible person when you demand responsibility for public statements, which means you shouldn’t make hasty statement that offend others and inflict damages.

You have inflicted those damages on us both at home and abroad and unless you deny those untruthful claims about VREME, we will be forced to demand protection from the courts. We hope that this won’t happen although it would be an ideal opportunity for you to get first hand experience of court practice here which, as far as I know, you have been protecting as an efficient way to protect people who have been offended in public communication.