Deportation of a friend

'Show me a man and in five minutes I will prove that he is guilty', says Mr. Flowers in a legendary Hungarian anti-Stalinist movie 'Key Witness', made long before Stalin's concrete around Eastern Europe began to crack and disassemble. Mr. Flowers does not live in Hungary for a long time now, but it seems that some members from his family settled here for good (in the government and other services), polishing the old theory that there is a potential enemy in every atom of the air. And that everyone can be guilty of something anytime. So, on April 22nd, no more than five minutes was needed to our immigration service at Belgrade Airport to take into custody and later, in a shortened procedure, sentence Taro Konishi, a journalist and photo reporter of the Japanese daily 'Yom Yuri Shimbun', the daily with the biggest run in the world.

A 'suspicious person', Konishi, was taken in last Saturday at Belgrade Airport when he was trying to leave for London where we works in the 'Yom Yuri Shimbun' branch office. The immigration officer discovered that there was no 'leave to enter' in Konishi's passport, which would prove that he legally entered the country. One day earlier, around noon, this Japanese colleague entered Yugoslavia quite legally at the border crossing near Presevo. He came from Skopje, Macedonia by a Belgrade taxi (the taxi driver's name was Milosevic, he was born in Pozarevac, lives in Belgrade, but does not work in Dedinje). Mr. Milosevic says that they were held at the border for ten minutes, that an officer took Japanese reporter's passport, entered the official premises and asked something his boss, then he called someone in Belgrade and finally with the words 'everything is all right, wished a nice journey to both travellers. Being all that busy, he must have forgotten to stamp the journalist's passport.

WHERE IS THE STAMP: Accused at Airport in Belgrade that he illegally entered FR Yugoslavia, the Japanese reporter suggested the taxi-driver Milosevic as his witness. The taxi driver, who, by the way, took him to the airport as well, was only 30 feet away from the passport-control office at that moment and was prepared to confirm, personally, or with stamps in his passport that the Japanese reporter really was what he said he was, and not some suspicious spy that 'secretly' and illegally entered the country, and that he was just 'normally' trying to leave the country via plane. The officials at the airport refused to hear about any 'taxi driver Milosevic' and kept repeating the same question 'Where is your stamp, buddy?'. The plane for London departed from Belgrade at 10:40 a.m., without the 'suspicious journalist Konishi', who was taken into custody and held at the Airport police station until he was transported to the magistrate around noon. The judge also had no doubts: Konishi was sentenced to pay a fine of 6,000 dinars, plus costs of the violation and the court interpreter. All in all 6,500 dinars, under the threat of carrying it out by force. He was lucky to be a Japanese reporter, since they earn good money, so that Taro Konishi had the money to pay the fine. Had he not been able to pay, he would have spent 30 days in prison.

As it was explained in the final verdict, the judge took into consideration the kind and dimension of the violation, the level of responsibility of the accused, his personal, family and financial status. When all that is taken into account, the man was lucky - single, no family, works for powerful and wealthy newspaper, crosses the border without the stamp and all that for only 6,500 diners. The judge, however, determined by examining the passport of the accused, that Konishi violated the Law on the Comportment of Foreigners. Konishi claims that on the trial he suggested again the taxi driver as his witness, offered its phone number to the judge (who seemed to be in the hurry), but he concluded in the verdict that the accused journalist 'did not have any suggestions for demonstrating any proofs'. The same judge declared the 'protective measure' of deportation out of the territory of FRY, allowing the Office for Foreigners of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) to forbid him to enter our country for the period of one year, if they find it necessary. Just after the verdict was pronounced, people from the court showed the reporter a coffee-shop outside the court where he could exchange the money, so he got hold of freshly printed banknotes.

JOKES ARE ALLOWED: Sometime after 7 p.m., Konishi was transported to the police station of Savski Venac, where the Office for Foreigners was. In the meantime, the reporter's newspaper heard about the incident, as well as the Japanese Embassy in Belgrade. After a few phone calls, officials from the Office for Foreigners, very polite people, by the way, determined that the Japanese reporter really did cross the border the day before near Presevo with taxi driver Milosevic, that the Ministry of Information was informed about that, and that it was all the mistake of the officers at the border who forgot to stamp the passport. Instead, Konishi already received a new stamp in his passport - the one that directs him to leave the country as soon as possible. The truth, though it was revealed quite late, helped him not only to be forbidden to enter Yugoslavia in the period of one year, but also not to spend a night in some prison near Belgrade. Because everything was taking place on Saturday, when it was hard to check anything, and especially to correct what was 'determined' at the shortened trial. After almost ten hours of interrogation and travelling around police stations and courts, the Japanese reporter was allowed to get a new ticket to London, go to hotel and tomorrow finally leave Belgrade. He is allowed to appeal to the Council for Violations within eight days, although the appeal does not delay the execution of the verdict, which is the departure from the country.

The author of this column knows very well that Taro Konishi is a great professional and a man of virtues. Last year, in the mid March he came from Tokyo to London as a 'Yom Yuri's' new photo-reporter for Europe. When he came to the office in London they told him to pack the bags and get to Belgrade somehow, as there was a war to begin. He stayed in Belgrade quite long, carefully noting everything that was going on these days, especially NATO's 'collateral damages', from the first one in Aleksinac, to those in Grdelica, Surdulica, Nis, RTS, China Embassy... As opposed to the majority of other foreign reporters who took the war coldly, Taro Konishi did not hide his feelings towards innocent victims and human suffering. Together with other two colleagues from the same newspaper, last year he received the most prestigious journalist award in Japan for war reporting from Yugoslavia. During the war he acquainted many friends here, and after all, because of them he decided to fly to London from Belgrade, and not directly from Skopje.

The story about 'suffering' of the Japanese colleague might be reported as 'collateral damage' that does not deserve that much space in the newsmagazine. In the state in which the most respected journalists can be murdered in the broad daylight and investigation to determine nothing a year later, in which every day the media is suppressed by high penalties, or in which a journalist can be sentenced to a year in prison for writing a pamphlet, 6,500 dinars taken from the pocket of the Japanese reporter or maltreatment of foreign reporters who recently had to sleep over at the airport because they were not allowed to enter the country and report from the opposition meeting, this can almost be treated as meaningless. But, here every foreign reporter is suspicious from the beginning and that is why he has to report himself every ten days to the police, to have his permission to stay extended. This was not common even in the time of Stalin and Mr. Flowers. The ideal of the regime seems to be to clear away from here all foreign reporters and to make them their visit and work here as hard as possible, so that they would wish to leave.

This time a Japanese reporter felt the power of the state which is most efficient when it needs to be repressive. The case of Tari Konishi is in the same time paradigmatic and represents a perfect miniature of how this state functions and you can see everything from that example. Konishi himself, after all that has happened to him, was not too angry and grieved, but rather confused, especially by the logic that everybody here is guilty, until proven different. And when it is proved, it is usually too late.