SARAJEVO, 22.08.2018 – Western Balkan’s Regional Platform for advocating media freedom and journalists’ safety, which represents more than 8000 members, strongly condemns the brutal attack on the BHRT team, that took place on Monday, 20st of August in Konjic.
The team was returning from an assignment in Široki Brijeg when a group of approximately fifteen masked persons approached the BHRT vehicle, attacked the journalists and media workers in the vehicle. The driver was seriously injured, and a significant material damage was made.
Circumstances 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. The brutal attack on our colleagues from BHRT is no surprise, as threats to journalists on the street or through social networks have become a daily matter.
The Steering Committee of BHJA considers this attack to be politically motivated. „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 call on the relevant police and judicial authorities 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.
BHJA registered this as the 4th physical attack on journalist in 2018.
Attacking and threatening journalists is a direct attack on freedom of expression and the right of citizens to be informed. Each attack on journalists is the attack on public interest, democracy and rights of all citizens.
Skopje – Belgrade – Podgorica – Prishtina – Sarajevo – Zagreb, 22.08.2018.
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 Serbia
