The Board of Directors of the Association of BH Journalists expressed its concern on Monday over the growing number of reports to the Association and the Helpline for Journalists regarding verbal and online attacks on journalists, the spread of hate speech against journalists and the media through social networks, accompanied by death threats and threats of physical violence as well as threats to media freedom from police institutions and judicial authorities.

After the Banja Luka-based Euroblic and Srpskainfo portal journalists were interrogated by the police last week and forced to reveal their sources of information and Zurnal’s journalists were threatened, and some politicians even publicly, verbally attacked journalists, BH journalists received two more reports of threats and the spread of hate speech on social networks against journalists.

After interviewing the Democratic Action Party (SDA) leader Bakir Izetbegovic in the show called Pressing, on February 22, the N1 TV editor, Amir Zukic, was exposed to brutal attacks, insults and threats on social networks by numerous SDA supporters, as well as some high-ranking members of that party. Thus, a prominent SDA member and a representative in the Sarajevo Canton Assembly, Faruk Kapidzic, accused Zukic on his Facebook account of being “paid to promote lies” and called him a “tuned” Bosniak, which caused a series of insulting comments from Kapidzic's Facebook followers.

At the same time, the editor of the Istraga.ba portal, Avda Avdic, was threatened with physical violence by some sympathizers of the Narod i Pravda (NiP) party after the publication of an article about the Mayor of Ilidza Municipality, Nermin Muzur.

The BH Journalists Management Board demands an immediate reaction from the competent institutions – the police and prosecutor's offices – in all the mentioned cases, detailed investigations and the sanctioning of the perpetrators in accordance with the law!

“We also urge the SDA and NiP to sanction their members threatening and inciting hate speech against journalists on social networks in accordance with their codes of ethics and internal regulations, and in this way send a message to their sympathizers and the entire public that threats and violence against journalists must be stopped and such behaviour will not be tolerated,” the Association stressed.

The helpline for journalists and BiH journalists will inform all relevant institutions about these cases and about the increase in the number of attacks and pressures on journalists, including the OSCE, the Delegation of the European Union to BiH, the Institution of the Ombudsman for Human Rights of BiH and diplomatic and consular missions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.