Sarajevo, 28.09.2019. – The Steering Committee of the BH Journalists Association (BHJA) strongly condemns the death threats to journalists and editors of the Radio Sarajevo portal, as well as to their family members, sent by a fan of the Sarajevo Football Club after the publication of article that one fan of this club was sentenced to five years in prison in Belarus, because police found cocaine on him.

After telephone threats, a FC Sarajevo fan came with a group of others to the editorial office of this media, where they harassed the journalist and held him hostage for more than two hours, forcing him to remove article from the Radio Sarajevo portal system under death threats, and also to call other media in BiH to remove said content.

The Steering Committee of BHJA assesses this attack as a brutal violation of the right to freedom of expression and endanger the safety of journalists and the entire editorial office of Radio Sarajevo, as well as the illicit conduct of violence by FC Sarajevo fans over multiple media in BiH.

The Committee welcomes the effective response of the Sarajevo Canton MUP and the swift arrest of two suspects in this crime, but expect the police and the Prosecutor’s Office of Sarajevo Canton to take other measures prescribed by law to ensure that the attackers are severely punished.

At the same time, BH Journalists draw attention to the unacceptable silence of FC Sarajevo and the BiH Football Federation, who must publicly condemn this act and take all measures against the violent behavior of cheerleading groups or individuals who are not the first to commit violence against journalists because of the way they report from sports events or write about fan groups.

Since the beginning of 2019, BH Journalists and the Free Media Help Line have registered 5 death threats and 6 physical assaults on journalists and media teams. The impunity of the attackers and the ineffective measures of the judicial institutions lead to the repetition of violence and the unacceptable violation of the freedom of the media and the rights of journalists in BiH, which must finally be stopped!

SARAJEVO, 28.09.2019. – The Western Balkan’s Regional Platform for Advocating Media Freedom and Journalists’ Safety, which represents more than 8,000 members, strongly condemns the death threats to journalists and editors of Radio Sarajevo portal and to their family members, sent by a fan of the Sarajevo football club.

The incident happened after the Radio Sarajevo portal and another number of media in Bosnia and Herzegovina reported that a fan of this football club was arrested for five years in prison in Belarus in August this year, where he has been for a football match and when Belarusian police found cocaine with him.

Last night, a group of supporters of the Sarajevo Football Club came before the Radio Sarajevo editorial office, where the author of the article was harassed by that group, held hostage for more than two hours, and under threat of killing him and his family, demanded that he remove the article from the Radio Sarajevo web site. At the same time, they forced the journalist to call other media outlets in Bosnia and Herzegovina and demanded them for the immediate removal of the unlisted article.

“We consider this attack a brutal violation of the right to freedom of expression and endanger the safety of journalists and the editorial office of Radio Sarajevo, as well as the illicit conduct of violence by the fans group of Sarajevo Football Club over multiple media in BiH,” said Boka Rudic, Secretary General of the BH Journalists Association. She welcomed the efforts of the Sarajevo Canton Police, who was prompt arrest of two attackers, but at the same time, Rudic strongly urged the police and the Prosecution Office must continue legal action to punish both of the attackers.
The Western Balkan’s Regional Platform for Advocating Media Freedom and Journalists’ Safety considers the inadmissibility of silence of the BiH Football Federation and the Sarajevo Football Club, and calls them to publicly condemn this act and take all measures against aggressive football fan groups or individuals. This is not the first time in Bosnia and Herzegovina that football fan groups have been harassed of journalists after their reports from sports events or after publishing critical articles about fan groups and their members.

We remind that every attack on a journalist is an attack on the public interest, democracy and human rights. The Platform will inform all European institutions of this incident, including the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and request their intervention to the last incident as well as on other cases of violence of media freedom and safety of journalists in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in other Western Balkans countries.

Skopje – Belgrade – Podgorica – Pristina – Sarajevo – Zagreb, 28.09.2019.

BH Journalists Association
Trade Union of Media of Montenegro
Croatian Journalists’ Association
Association of Journalists of Kosovo
Association of Journalists of Macedonia
Independent Journalists Association of Serbia

Sarajevo, 28.09.2019. – Two people were arrested Friday night after an attack by a group of hooligans posing as fans of the Sarajevo Football Club over the journalists and editorial board of Radiosarajevo.ba.

The attack came after Radiosarajevo.ba, after a professional check, published information that a FC Sarajevo fan had been sentenced to five years in prison in Belarus, because police officers found 0.16 grams of cocaine with him.

A group of hooligans raided the premises of Radio Sarajevo on Friday night and demanded the text to be removed, with threats of death to journalists, editorial staff and their families. The editor of the portal was also forced to call other editorial offices of the portals and newspapers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to ask them to remove that information as well.

– Under such threats, in a hostage situation, the editor of our portal was forced to physically remove the aforementioned text from the system of the portal Radiosarajevo.ba, and then under the same threats he was forced to call the other editorial offices of the portals and newspapers in BiH, and to seek them also to remove said content. Fearing for his own and the safety of his family, our colleague executed an order of a group of attackers – says Radiosarajevo in their statement.

The attack was strongly condemned by the OSCE, the BH Journalists Association, the Society of Journalists BiH and numerous other organizations, members of the media community, as well as representatives of the Government of Sarajevo Canton, who immediately visited the editorial office of Radio Sarajevo on Friday evening.

PODGORICA, 26.09.2019. – Three years after its first edition, the impression that emerges from the Media Days – an event promoted by the EU Commission in the Balkans – is that of a telenovela with a predictable ending, where the characters move within a well-defined perimeter. But the region’s media need more

One of the most important events of the recent years in the Western Balkans, the EU Western Balkans Media Days, ended on a rather dull note. The event, promoted by the European Commission and now in its third edition, brought together in Podgorica over 350 experts including policymakers, journalists, civil society representatives, and advocacy organisations committed to defending and promoting freedom of expression.

At least on paper, the novelty of this edition was the (attempted) involvement of political representatives through the “Policy meets Media” panel, demanded by the media community to finally have the possibility of “an open and honest
exchange about the state of play of freedom of media in the Western Balkans, the governments’ responsibility and about concrete actions for improvement of the current situation”, as highlighted in the conference brochure by Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations.

Such involvement, according to Srđan Cvijić, political analyst at the Open Society Foundation (OSF), proved vain: “There was an attempt on the side of the EU to directly involve political actors in the debate. However, we didn’t really experience this because politicians were not involved in a direct discussion with journalists and other participants at the conference”. An opinion also shared by Maja Vasić Nikolić of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS), who confirmed to us that “the overall session failed to focus on the actual topic of policy”.

Repetita iuvant (but sometimes annoy)

The start of the meeting was tarnished precisely by the absence of Johannes Hahn himself, who inaugurated the conference “virtually” with a pre-recorded video message . A rather predictable opening, in which the Commissioner reiterated themes and concepts already extensively covered, such as the critical media conditions in the fragile transition process, the centrality of press freedom in the context of the new Western Balkan Strategy undertaken in 2018, and its non-negotiability as regards the conditions for access to the European Union.

On the same wavelength also Christian Danielsonn, Director General of the EU Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, and Genoveva Ruiz Calavera, Director for the Western Balkans at the European Commission, who reiterated support for “a number of programmes and initiatives ranging from economic sustainability, media and information literacy, media accountability to regional networks that foster cooperation and reconciliation”.

Such statements have put quite a few noses out of joints, and are symptomatic of an increasingly apparent detachment between shiny EU policy and the grim media reality of the Balkans. This cleavage becomes even more apparent if we consider the (few) declarations of the (few) politicians of the region present at the meeting: emblematic is the joke by Mihajlo Jovović, journalist of the Montenegrin newspaper Vijesti, who in response to “the authorities’ efforts in the promotion of the rule of law and freedom of the press in Montenegro” cited in the opening remarks by Minister of Culture Aleksandar Bogdanović, commented: “I wonder about which country he is talking about”.

In fact, last September 9^th, the international appeal to the Montenegrin authorities for the acquittal of investigative journalist Jovo Martinović stressed that the latter “is accused of marijuana smuggling and criminal association and was sentenced to 18 months of detention, despite overwhelming evidence that his only connection to organised crime is through journalism”. A case that piles up with that of Olivera Lakić – an investigative journalist shot in the legs in May 2018 – in which, as Maja Vasić Nikolić points out, “doubts were raised about the investigation and the court’s verdict”.

A few positive notes

However, Nikolić herself highlights that the event also gave the opportunity “to share ideas, worries and possible solutions to problems media is facing, practically, worldwide”.

“I have had some great discussions in those three days and some interesting ideas popped up as well, so let’s see what comes out of it in the end”, added to OBCT Ilir Gashi, media analyst and former director of the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation (SCF). “It is also a good thing that we got the opportunity to speak directly to the high representatives of the European Commission and inform them on the current developments in the sphere of media freedom in our countries. We got strong assurances that for them this issue is basically sine qua non of the EU accession process. On the other hand, we have been meeting and talking on this conference (and many other conferences as well) for five years now, and it is difficult to see what was the real impact of this on our local situation”.

But it is especially during the three seminars – Independent Reporting, Reconciliation and Regional Cooperation, Encouraging New Generations of Journalists and New Business Models – that concrete ideas for improving the situation emerged: as reported by Maja Vasić Nikolić, panelist of the workshop “Reconciliation and Regional Cooperation”, “the group provided the organisers with a concrete list of recommendations that can contribute to
overcoming the nationalist narrative”. Among these, renewed pressure to guarantee the rule of law, support for trade associations and the regional network of the Press Councils, establishment of a national and/ or regional self-regulatory body for private advertisers, media literacy, and campaigns against the media that feed hate speech.

Freedom of the press and EU membership: a lark mirror?

Three years after its first edition, the impression that emerges from the Media Days is that of a telenovela with a predictable ending, where the characters move within a well-defined perimeter, between declarations repeated to exhaustion and bones thrown to quell tempers.

Predrag Blagojević, chief editor of Južne Vesti, Serbian newspaper victim of administrative obstinacy, is therefore not wrong when he tweets that “#EUWBmedia is nothing but a vent used by EU administration for Balkan journalists and media”, voicing the widespread feeling that the axiom “No press freedom – No EU” has now become a lark mirror. In fact, faced with the progressive deterioration of freedom of expression, the reaction of the European Union has often been weak and absent-minded, little inclined to exert the necessary pressure to actually improve the situation.

Therefore, as pointed out by Nikola Burazer in an article on BiEPAG Blog , criticisms in country reports are not enough, nor are ex-post statements on striking cases. In the face of the apparent crisis of this fundamental right – in the very countries where the accession process is at the most advanced stage, namely Serbia and Montenegro – it is necessary to go beyond simplistic awareness-raising, and use with conviction a more assertive power: in a nutshell, a “negative conditionality”.

This means, first of all, to stop pretending that, in the context of access negotiations, everything has the same weight. The impression, in fact, is that press freedom is often stifled by other issues, including the stability of the area. Emblematic in this respect are the words of Ilir Gashi, according to whom “it is the overwhelming feeling in our [Serbian, ed.] media community that the EU is turning a blind eye to what is obviously turning into a galloping autocracy, as long as the wider criteria of so-called ‘regional stability’ are met, and as long as President Vučić appears willing to work on resolving the Kosovo issue”.

This publication has been produced within the project European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, co-funded by the European Commission. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso and its partners and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union. The project’s page

BELGRAD, 25.09.2019. – The Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM) refused to give the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CINS) access to the transcripts of its Council sessions which revealed the breaches of media rules by the pro-regime Pink and Studio B TVs, that occurred during the 2018 local election campaign, the watchdog said.

Journalist of the online magazine “Žurnal” Avdo Avdic, whose research articles have provoked number of reactions in BH public in recent years, but also among politicians and representatives of the authorities, judiciary and the international community, writes for BH Journalists about his experiences and the most important stories he worked on that formed him as a journalist. This article is published as part of a project of cooperation with the German Embassy in BiH.

Sarajevo, 25.09.2019. -I have been writing about other people for nearly two decades. Which is why I am under enormous pressure now, when I’m about to write about myself in a leading role. I am a journalist, an editor and a censor at the same time. Whatever I chose to write about seems like exaggeration, and everything I thought I should leave out reminds of self-censorship. That’s why I will start by saying that pressure in journalism is often a subjective feeling forcing silence upon facts and events.

Conquering freedom

In my 17 years working as a journalist, I was a small town correspondent, a big city correspondent, a journalist in editorial office, a reporter in a TV investigative programme, a newspaper journalist, a TV reporter, an editor, an editor-in-chief and, finally, an online magazine investigative journalist.
I have won my freedom step by step. It was not a gift. Some of my decisions were naïve, childish. I’ve been through crises and life-threatening situations. There were times I had this groundless feeling that I’m being pressured. One fact, however, helped me overcome all of these impediments – my own feeling of being “clean”. Sure, some will say I’m not clean; they’ll write about how I was seen in the company of various people, they’ll claim I was influenced by him or her, but none of them can say, or rather prove, that I made up any of my stories, or was compensated in money or any other way for things I published. They can’t say I have ever helped anyone get a job in government institutions or any other state-owned company.

To be honest, in the beginning I felt enormous pressure because of such claims on Internet forums – mostly constructed in the heads of various politicians and a few “media experts”. When you read about yourself being an alcoholic and a drug addict and you have never tasted any of it in your life, when they write that eight different people paid for your home and you know that you’ll be paying your loan to the bank for another 20 years, when ministers you write about claim that you are a pro-regime journalist, while they are the regime, when they call you a traitor of Bosniaks and a hater of Croats and Serbs at the same time, when they call you an infidel and an islamophobe and then accuse you of supporting “Islamic terrorists”, when you’re interviewed in prosecutor’s offices for publishing the truth, when they air your phone conversations and cunningly devise that you’re sexually abusing your female colleagues in these conversations – you stop and ask yourself if it’s worth the effort?
Of course it is.

And, as time passes by, you get less and less irritated by fabrications of people who have no guts to sign their own words. These “accusations” entertain me, nowadays. Or, rather, they motivate me to push myself even harder to corroborate the stories about wrongdoings I’m investigating.
The first step to winning your freedom is conquering your own fears. And that is no easy feat.
I remember publishing a story about a drug gang from the town of Tuzla. I was just starting my career in journalism, working as a correspondent for Oslobodjenje daily. I pinpointed about a dozen “tough” guys as top heroin dealers and described how they run their business and how they’re protected by the police. When the story was published, many “friends” called me crazy, saying these guys were dangerous. And even though Emir Kodzaga and other story protagonists never called or threatened me, the myth surrounding them made me hesitant to leave home these days. Ten days later, when I realised that nothing happened, I wrote another story about them. The myth about them collapsed and I conquered my very first fear as a journalist. Some years later, Kodzaga was arrested for dealing heroin and I was already working for Federation TV.

Stories, editors and political pressure

My first “proper” assignment at the FTV PBS was the story about Gornja Maoca. The faraway village on the slopes of Majevica mountain was not particularly popular back in 2006. It was well-known only to the police and sheikh Nusret Imamovic’s followers. I went there with a cameraman. We walked up the mountain creek, filmed a couple of shots in the village and then went straight to the Jordanian curriculum based school. Sheikh Imamovic walked out of one of the houses, threatening that he would “track me down” if I mention any of the things I saw in Maoca. It put me in a serious dilemma whether I should publish this story, but I eventually decided that that’s the only right way to go.

Nusret Imamovic did not track me down, but these days the police all over the world is trying to track him down, as one of the most wanted ISIL terrorists. The story about Maoca helped me overcome more of my fears.

The next one was Tasim Kucevic. Notorious for his connections with Italian mafia, served time for enslaving people, the “king of prostitution” in BIH – he was the most feared man in Tuzla. I mentioned him once in a story I did for FTV’s investigative programme called “60 Minutes”. When nothing happened, I pushed the limits. And then I pushed the limits some more. And again. Five or six stories later, I received a phone call from the man himself. Tasim Kucevic agreed to be interviewed.
He walked in with a gun in his belt. He threatened to break my arms and legs and put my mom and my sister in the trunk of his car; he cursed at me. I published the interview.
Tasim Kucevic was later jailed for twelve years. He didn’t do anything to me, yet.

For years I kept publishing stories about Tuzla mobsters and I kept passing by their cafes. Except for occasional minor provocations, nothing ever happened to me. Had I been listening to the advice of those creating the myth about the protagonists of my stories, I would never have published a thing. Had I not conquered my own fears, I would never have known how it feels when a “tough guy” you write about gets jailed.

I do believe that folktales and myths are far more dangerous than any threats, and are the reason many journalists – especially at the start of their career – become self-censors. That’s why it’s so important to triumph over fears.

When I was appointed news editor at FTV seven years ago, I was under greater pressure than ever before. But there was one important difference – I was more experienced. The authorities were bulldozing us, (mis)using judiciary, parliaments and competing media outlets. The Federation of BiH’s prime minister and ministers sitting in his government refused to speak for the programme I edited, FTV reporters were not allowed to attend press conferences and, finally, they intercepted and published telephone communications between the then president of the Federation of BiH, Zivko Budimir and me.

Facts are one thing, whereas interpretation of facts is a completely different thing. But this battle, with different interpretations of one the same fact, is lost before it’s even fought. The path to salvation is to stop caring what people say and construct about you.

However, it is not always the government pressuring us – I’ll illustrate this with an example of marketing and managerial pressure. Omer Hasanovic, my colleague from Tuzla, was working on a story about crimes committed in “Dita”, a Tuzla based company. Among many others, their partner in crime was a Sarajevo-based marketing company, doing business with the FTV and having close connections with my managers. Although I was aware of all of this, I decided to air the “controversial” feature in the FTV evening news.

Next day, all hell broke loose. The director requested an explanation of why the feature was aired. The marketing agency threatened to terminate the contract.

So I lied.

I lied that it was my mistake and that I’ll talk about it with the author of the feature. Omer Hasanovic can witness that I have never said a word about it to him.
Another such incident occurred when Amarildo Gutic said in the FTV programme “Mreža” that the wife of our director Zvonimir Jukic was provided incentive by the then Minister of Agriculture, Jerko Lijanovic. I knew that his wife’s name was on the list but I chose not to intervene. Both Amarildo and I were removed from our positions shortly after that.

As an editor, you can be blamed for everything. You are caught between a rock and a hard place. You are neither management – caring only about finances, nor a journalist – who should focus solely on facts.

Hearings and threats of investigations

At least five persons can witness a situation with the then Minister of internal affairs of FBiH Predrag Kurtes. My colleagues prepared a feature about minister Kurtes for “Mreža” programme. I was on good terms then as I still am today with him.
What was I to do?

I called Kurtes on the phone, in the presence of my colleagues and programme editor, and told him that “my reporters were going to film an awful feature about him and that I managed to minimize the damage”. Naturally, I did not as much as look at the story, let alone made a single change. But Kurtes believed me. I told him about what I did some time later, because this “manipulation” enabled me to save a friend and my professional integrity.
If prosecutor Oleg Cavka got hold of this telephone conversation, today we would be talking about “Kurtes case”, an even worse occurrence than “Budimir case”.

After leaving the FTV, I ended up working for online magazine called “Žurnal”. The first advantage that I came to appreciate is that it’s a non-profit media outlet. The second one was that I was not an editor. The third – there were no constraints typical for public broadcasting services. I could investigate and write as it should be. Yes, I do have problems because of the people and things I write about. I have been interviewed in the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH, threatened with investigations, I was not allowed to ask questions at press conferences, my name appeared on various lists at border crossings, but my fear of those stronger than me was gone forever after the story about drug gang from Tuzla.

These days I’ve been writing about one of the biggest drug cartels in the world, trafficking cocaine in tons, and I feel less threatened then when I was writing about Emir Kodzaga’s drug gang, dealing ounces of heroin in Tuzla Canton. That is why I firmly believe that story from Oslobodjenje, published fifteen years ago, was the turning point in my career. It helped me conquer my fears. And made me realize that the main characters of popular myths are not as tough as they seem.

Pristina, September 24, 2019.

The Council of Europe Office in Pristina in cooperation with OSCE Mission in Kosovo have organized the workshop to discuss on the role of media in raising awareness on the violence against women and domestic violence.

The Council of Europe Office in Pristina and OSCE Mission in Kosovo organized in Pristina the workshop: The role of media in raising awareness regarding the violence against woman and domestic violence. Its purpose is to inform media representatives on existing international standards and local legislation regarding gender equality, issues of sexism and gender stereotyping in media and the role of media on effective reporting on violence against women and domestic violence.

The main speakers in the workshop were the OSCE Ambassador Mr. Jan Braathu, Ms. Merita Limani, Project Manager with Council of Europe Office in Pristina, Mr. Naim Qelaj, the National Coordinator against Domestic Violence, and Ms. Gentiana Begolli Pustina, the President of Association of Journalists of Kosovo.

Mr. Braathu said that the journalists are in a unique position to face up the domestic violence and the violence against women. Also, he added that this kind of violence was not only the statistics issues, but it is a human rights issue, so the media must increase public awareness. Regarding the issues, Begolli Pustina said that some media report on the violence against women only when it happens. Thus, they do not cover it permanently as a social problem.

Ms. Merita Limani, the Project Manager of ‘’Reinforcing the Fight against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence – Phase II’’ implemented by Council of Europe Office in Pristina said that the  issues of sexism, gender stereotyping and in general lack of gender sensitivity within institutions and society, often lead to an enabling environment for an increased gender-based violence. Therefore, the role of media in enhancing public opinion and awareness against violence against women and domestic violence is crucial.

The project focuses on strengthening the capacities of institutions in charge of supporting services for victims, providing justice as well as running awareness-raising initiatives to counter violence against women and domestic violence in line with the standards set in Istanbul Convention.