The media freedom situation in Bosnia is worrying, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Harlem Desir, said during a meeting with the Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications, Sasa Dalipagic.

Some of the conclusions from the meeting were that hate speech can be found everywhere on electronic media, and that the rules in place are not sufficient to tackle the issue.

“The mechanisms that are available to the Communications Regulatory Agency and Press Council, which have competencies to sanction hate speech in electronic media or in the press, are not being utilized in their full capacity,” the Ministry of Communications and Transport said.

Dalipagic also touched upon the financial issues the state level public broadcaster, BHRT, is facing.

The two public broadcasters in Bosnia’s two semi-autonomous regions should, according to law, be paying BHRT part of their profits, but they have failed to do so for years. One of the frequently stated reasons for why these payments have not been made, is that BHRT does not represent all of Bosnia’s peoples equally.

Dalipagic repeated this reason, saying BHRT should reflect the ethnic and territorial composition of Bosnia.