5 February 2015

The Opinion of Press Council of Kosovo on the complaint of Youth Initiative for Human Rights against news portal telegrafi.com

05th of April 2013, Pristina
Ref: 20.02.2013\144-2013
The Opinion of Press Council of Kosovo on the complaint of Youth Initiative for Human Rights against news portal telegrafi.com
Press Council of Kosovo, on its regular meeting held on 26th of march, 2013 after reviewing the complaint of Youth Initiative for Human Rights against news portal telegrafi.com in relation to the questions of this portal mentioned in Facebook dealing with a survey and in relation to reader’ comments, gave this:
O P I N I O N
– Complaint upheld
J U S T I F I C A T I O N
The complainant “Youth Initiative for Human Rights” in Pristina filed a complaint against news portal telegrafi.com in relation to the article: “27 memorials of Serb cemetery in Kllokot are torn down” published on 20th of January 2013, claiming that the article incites hatred, and uses denigrating and discriminating language. The complaint is based upon the violation of Dispositions, Chapter II of Press Code of Kosovo (reporting of truth), and Chapter III (incitement of hatred).
After carefully analyzing the complaint and the publication of telegrafi.com, The Board of Press Council of Kosovo found that this medium like every other one has the right to make questions, but should not publish comments containing hate speech, just like in this case.
PCK concludes that news portal telegrafi.com in this case has violated Chapter III of Press Code of Kosovo (incitement and hate speech) and once again invites all written media as well as news portals not to publish comments that violate the Code of Journalism Ethics, which contain hate speech or other violations described in Press Code of Kosovo.
Based on the factual situation established above, the Board of Press Council of Kosovo decided as outlined in the enactment clause of this Opinion.