Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, David Iurescia (LW4DAF), who shares a link to this online petition for International Radio Serbia.

The link labeled, “Serbia needs a World Service” is prominent on Radio Serbia’s website.

Click here to open the petition page which is in both Serbian and English. I have pasted the English wording of the petition below:

Serbia needs a world service!

The friends and listeners of the International Radio Serbia – Radio Yugoslavia have initiated this petition to prevent the extinguishing of this media house, important for Serbia. The people signed below ask of the Serbian Prime Minister to abolish the government’s decision and that he personally talks to the employees. We demand that the extinguishing of this radio be stopped and that Serbia finally starts pondering its presence among the global media and the importance of shortwave broadcasting, along with all other media outlets that the International Radio Serbia is using (internet, video and audio newscasts, live stream).

After the failed negotiations between the employees of the International Radio Serbia – Radio Yugoslavia and the Ministry of Culture and Information, the Serbian Government passed the decision to EXTINGUISH the International Radio Serbia as of 1 July 2015.

The Serbian Government (including several different ruling parties and governments since the country has not been called Yugoslavia) for more than two decades is unable to understand the significance of having a media house such as the International Radio Serbia. It is owing to the negligence of the Serbian Government that we still carry the name Radio Yugoslavia.

The International Radio Serbia is the only radio station in the country that broadcasts program on the shortwave frequency, reaching all parts of the world, and for 79 years has been the promoter of the state policies, economy, culture, and traditions. Through the broadcasts on the short waves and via internet (www.glassrbije.org and www.voiceofserbia.org ) in Serbia and another eleven languages, this media house has been the unofficial portal of the state of Serbia for eight decades, covering all five continents. This kind of informal diplomacy is today an irreplaceable avenue of country’s promotion in the most positive manner. It is confirmed by the fact that other, much bigger countries, have not renounced on their world services, so they are modernizing and improving the work of similar media – Deutsche Welle, BBC World Service, Voice of America, Voice of Russia – as do some countries in the region, like Slovenia, an EU member that declared their radio for the media of national importance.

Numerous listeners around the world, as well as the Serbian embassies abroad and foreign embassies in Serbia, have assessed the International Radio Serbia as a relevant and reliable source of information about Serbia. For the members of Serbian Diaspora, it is an irreplaceable tie with the homeland.

It is worth reminding that the International Radio Serbia is one of the oldest shortwave radio stations, founded six years before the Voice of America. It started broadcasting on 8 March 1936, in the then Kingdom of Yugoslavia.