Konjic, 21.028.2018. – Steering committee of the BH Journalists Association, strongly condemns the attack on the BHRT team, that happened on Monday, 21st of August, shortly before midnight in Konjic, while the team was returning from an assignment in Široki Brijeg. A group of fifteen masked young men dressed in red t-shirts turned to the BHRT van, causing serious injury to the driver and causing considerable material damage.
Circumcises of this attack, clearly indicate that violence against media in BiH has received a new threatening form, in which masked street groups do not hesitate from the gravest forms of attacks on human dignity and media freedom. Last night’s brutal attack on colleagues from BHRT is no surprise, as threats to journalists on the street or through social networks have become a daily matter.
We consider the attack to be politically motivated as well as earlier attacks on teams of different redaction.
We are afraid that the attacks will become more frequent and more brutal, as we approach the official pre-election campaign. The attack of the masked group on colleagues of BHRT is also a consequence of insufficiently energetic measures of authorities and judicial institutions. We remind that the attackers on the BHRT team and other journalists during the February protests in Tuzla have not been sanctioned yet.
We call on the relevant police and judicial authorities of to identify and sanction the attackers as soon as possible. Otherwise, we fear that the street, under the patronage of politics, will finally completely take over the editing of media programs, and journalistic freedoms become a mere illusion. This attitude of the Steering Committee steams from the fact that during the previous attacks on journalists, the reaction of the public was absent, and we are unpleasantly surprised that attacks on journalists have not triggered the reaction of non-governmental organizations advocating democratic and media freedoms.