After a journalist was attacked recently in Banja Luka, the main city in Republika Srpska, the question of journalistic safety in Bosnia and Herzegovina is once again in the spotlight.
Some blame the country’s high-ranking politicians for creating an atmosphere in which attacks on journalists have become almost routine – as many of them have a long history of conflict with the media.
One is Milorad Dodik, President of Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity and head of its ruling party, the Party of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD.
While Dodik duly condemned the attack on Vladimir Kovacevic, a journalist from Banja Luka, the Bosnian Journalists Association on Monday recalled that Dodik had often targeted journalists and the media in the past, calling them enemies, spies and foreign agents – so potentially turning them into targets.
The association described the latest assault as the direct result of repeated attacks on and insults to BN TV journalists by officials from the ruling coalition in the entity, adding that such attacks must end.
Kovacevic, a journalist at BN TV, was attacked on Sunday in front of his home in Banja Luka, while coming back from work.
Dodik on Monday insisted that the authorities in Republika Srpska were not behind the event, following a visit to the victim.
Responding to accusations during a press conference that day, he also insisted that the attack on Kovacevic was the only one of its kind in Republika Srpska, adding that other cases had been recorded on “some other territory”, referring to the Bosnia’s other entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The attack would be treated as attempted murder, Banja Luka District Prosecutor’s Office announced on Monday.
However, Dodik’s critics say he has a history of disrespecting and targeting media and journalists, especially those who work for BN TV, which is one of the most popular media outlets in the entity.
In August, Dodic claimed that Dino Jahic, editor of the Serbian investigative journalism outlet, CINS, was drawing on huge international and Western funds to “topple political structures in the region”.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
