Sarajevo, 06.03.2020. – If there are journalists whose rights are being violated, then we have a serious problem – warned the Secretary General of the BH Journalists Association (BHJA) Borka Rudic.
Rudic was a participant in a conversation with journalists called “Media and Human Rights – Human Rights and Media” at the EU Info Center in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. As she said, the topic is interesting for two reasons.
“The first is to talk about human rights in the media, which means respecting the human rights of journalists, editors and all other media employees. In order to empower them, educate them, to make them be safe and free to do their jobs – without any pressure”, says Rudic.
She emphasized that in an atmosphere where they themselves are pressured, journalists cannot report professionally and in accordance with the code of ethics on the human rights about other categories of the population, vulnerable groups and all others:
“If you have journalists who are under political pressure, who do not have a permanent work contract, who are victims of various forms of pressure, mobbing in the workplace, then we can hardly say that our media outlets are free and can report on human rights in accordance with European standards”.
The Secretary General of the BHJA points out that human rights are being more and more violated in BiH. For example, she cited reporting on women and supporting stereotypes through media content, violations of migrants’ rights through the spread of xenophobia and hate speech, as well as the rights of persons with disabilities, vulnerable and minority groups whose problems are not professionally reported by the media.
Sinno Khaldun, Deputy Chief of the EU Delegation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, stressed that without respect for human rights and media freedoms, BiH will not become a member of the European Union.
“There must be a guarantee of media freedom and a guarantee of basic human rights. We have repeated this recently in the opinion of the European Union” Khaldun said.
According to him, basic human rights and media freedom are two sides of the same coin.