Director of Transparency International
for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ivana Korajlić, is not optimistic when it comes to
the state of the media and media freedom.
"When it comes to media freedom in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is, unfortunately, increasingly endangered due to
the fact that we have official initiatives for the passing and already passed
laws that lead to a complete restriction of freedom of speech and expression,
and therefore freedom of the media. "Also, there are constant attacks from
the highest ranking officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are directed at
journalists, individuals, the media, and also civil society and critics of
various authorities at different levels," she told Politicki.ba.
She points out that attacks on the media,
journalists, the non-governmental sector, and critics of the government are
"something that has become an established practice and is not unique to
Milorad Dodik, although he is the one who does it the most".
"On all sides, we have office bearers who use their position to put additional pressure on the media and deal with individuals and the public, while using the most primitive ways possible.
What contributed the most to this was the
lack of any consequences related to attacks on the media, which very often led
to physical attacks and even attempted murders, which were never adequately
prosecuted. It is never discovered who is really responsible," she points
out.
Korajlić also warns of the growing trend
of legal initiatives aimed at the actual introduction of censorship.
"It is not only a matter of amending the Criminal Code of the Republika Srpska, which criminalizes defamation, revealing someone's family circumstances, publishing files, but we also have something similar in the Sarajevo Canton," she says.
Through amendments to the Law on Public
Order and Peace, in that Canton they tried to authorize the police to determine
what is fake news and what is not.
"Very high fines were foreseen for legal entities and the media, and they were going to restrict freedom of speech on social media. We have similar activities in some other cantons, but not to this extent.
And this leads us to a situation where,
under the guise of fighting violence and hate speech, which are already defined
as criminal offenses but are not prosecuted, new criminal offenses are
constantly being introduced that are limiting the work of the media," she
continues.
However, Korajlić warns that the citizens themselves are increasingly being targeted.
