BH Journalists Association called on the lawmakers in Bosnia's Republika Srpska entity parliament to reject the government's law proposal on criminalisation of defamation at the session scheduled for Tuesday, and thus stop the long-term destruction of media freedoms in Republika Srpska and violations of the rights to freedom of expression and information of journalists, civil society activists and citizens who criticise the legality of actions taken by the ruling coalition in that part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The association's Steering Board said that MPs have an opportunity to show the citizens of Republika Srpska entity that they do not want to abuse the highest legislative body in the entity for the sake of the interests of “only one political faction and/or a few people from the inner circle of the leadership of the SNSD party, led by Milorad Dodik” and that they do not intend to “suffer the consequences of the institutional torture of the media and journalists that the criminalisation of defamation can bring.”

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They also reminded that the previous public debate on the Government's proposal to criminalise defamation was to deceive the public, since the “competent Ministry of Justice of Republika Srpska and senior representatives of RS National Assembly only formally showed that they wanted to hear the opinion of the interested public.”

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The Steering Board called on the MPs to reject the criminalisation of defamation as proposed by the Government and thus show that they are against repression of freedom of expression and freedom of the media, as well as that they “do not support institutional violence against the fundamental values of every normal and democratic society.”