Banja Luka/Sarajevo, 02.03.2025 The Steering Committee of BH Journalists Association (BHJA SC) and the Free Media Help Line (FMHL) give full support to journalist Djordje Vujatovic, a correspondent of the RTV Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FTV) from Banja Luka, who was verbally attacked and inappropriately questioned about private matters by the President of the Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, at a press conference held on March 1st, 2025. in Banja Luka.
Instead of answering a legitimate journalist’s question, Mr Dodik wondered at Vujatovic that he was still working for a media outlet from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and addressed him with the words: “Tell me, how big is your palace, you will get it immediately. Just leave it there.” The RS President stressed that journalists working for federal media are “a hostile structure that needs to be thrown out”, and promised that the “expulsion” would take place quickly, since it is “easy to prove” that these journalists “worked in a hostile manner against Republika Srpska”.
The BHJA SC considers it unacceptable and discriminatory to label journalists as “hostile structures” just because they do their job responsibly and professionally in the interest of the public, often risking their own lives and the safety of their families, in an atmosphere of fear and social crisis, which has been generated and imposed by Milorad Dodik for years. Working in such an environment, with daily threats and attacks, announcements of expulsions, calls to the police and inspection to enter the control of the media…, are nothing more than the targeted destruction of the media community in the RS in order to close independent media and completely silence critical, journalistic voices.
In the context of all of the above, BHJA expresses full solidarity with colleagues in the media in Banja Luka and other cities of the Republika Srpska, and we invite them to use the legal aid system and the FMHL lawyer network in order to adequately protect themselves from the growing and directed violence.
At the same time, BHJA SC reminds the Ministry of the Interior and the judicial institutions in Republika Srpska, as well as the Government in Banja Luka, that it is their constitutional and legal obligation, as well as their institutional responsibility, to prevent the abuse of laws and institutions for an investigation of journalists and media on the basis of unfounded, political or private demands, even when the Republika Srpska President himself is behind these demands.
Steering Committee of BH Journalists Association