prijava
SARAJEVO, February 24 (FENA) - The Board of Directors of the Association of BH Journalists calls on all holders of political positions in Bosnia and Herzegovina to stop name-calling, labeling and verbal attacks on journalists and the media.
This type of behavior represents open political pressure on the media and restriction of freedom of expression, which is not in accordance with democratic principles and values, said the Management Board of the Association of BH Journalists.
In the past two days, as stated, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of BiH and the President of the People and Justice Party (NiP) Elmedin Konaković and the President of the Republika Srpska and the President of the SNSD Milorad Dodik verbally lashed out at the journalists of Klix and BN Television, exclusively because that journalists did their job professionally - relaying their statements and asking them questions at press conferences.
After the portal Klix reported the statement he made at the press conference in Zagreb, Minister Konaković directly called out the journalist of this portal, Senja Mahinić, saying that Mahinić is "intrigued to make a story" out of everything he (Konaković) "personally does". Konaković went a step further, and in his desire to "teach" journalists how to do their job, he said that before they publish his statement, which was publicly broadcast and directly transmitted via television, they should first call him to confirm that he is really said what he said?!
At the same time, Milorad Dodik verbally attacked BN TV journalists at a press conference in the RS Government building on Thursday, for the umpteenth time. When asked by a journalist about the abuse of public functions, Dodik, instead of answering, told her that the word "fraud" should be next to her name. After the journalist Vladimir Kovačević, who survived an assassination attempt in 2018, reacted to those insults, Dodik told him to "treat his frustrations elsewhere". After that, Dodik called BN journalists Tijana Milinković and Milan Kovača "paranoid" and prevented them from asking him more questions.
The Board of Directors of the BH Journalists Association reminds that this is not the first time that Dodik and Konaković, without any reason, verbally attack and publicly target individual journalists and media.
In both cases, the statement of the BH Association added, the journalists did their job in accordance with professional norms - they reported the politicians' statements and asked them a few questions. It is inadmissible and reprehensible that Elmedin Konaković and Milorad Dodik "invoice" their own unprofessionalism, nervousness and recklessness when making certain statements to journalists and the media, who only report on it. The fact that such verbal attacks and false accusations against journalists are becoming more and more intense and aggressive is particularly worrying in the period when in Republika Srpska, according to the directive of Milorad Dodik, changes to the law are being prepared, according to which defamation will become a criminal offense. Unfortunately, some politicians in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina do not hide their desire to re-criminalize slander in that entity as well, all so that they can threaten "disobedient" journalists with prison terms if they report in a way that they do not like, announced the Management Board of the Association of BH Journalists .
From that association, they also remind that the freedom of the media and the safety of journalists are one of the fundamental conditions for the accession of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the European Union, for which both Dodik and Konaković are declaratively advocating.
(FENA) L. N.
