Bosnia and Herzegovina

PEN International, in collaboration with various Balkan PEN centres, publishes a report examining the many challenges faced by independent writers and journalists in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia.

On 18 July, members of the National Assembly of Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) will vote on the draft Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code, which would re-introduce criminal penalties for defamation.

Media groups have put forth recommendations on a number of concerning issues, such as the problems plaguing the public broadcast service, the proposed criminalisation of defamation and journalists’ safety.

Several dozen individuals attacked journalists with sticks and bottles as they were leaving a meeting of LGBTQI+ groups in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska. Police at the scene did not intervene.

ARTICLE 19 reports on how weak content moderation of social media platforms can transform them into hotbeds of ‘disinformation’, ‘hate speech’, and discrimination.

Kovačević was attacked by two unidentified men in front of his home; before the assault he had been covering a protest calling on the authorities to resolve the unexplained death of a 21-year-old student.

After his office was attacked with a hand grenade in 2015, Muhammad Yasir fled his home for safety in Europe. Since then he has been thrown out of Hungary and robbed and beaten by the police in Croatia; he currently lives in a migrant camp in Bosnia.

The draft law on public peace and order for the Bosnian Serb entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina would extend the scope of existing public order laws to include social media.

Authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina should promptly investigate cases of excessive use of force by police against demonstrators on streets and in detention in Tuzla and Sarajevo between February 5 and 9, 2014, Human Rights Watch said today. Authorities should also investigate police violence against several journalists and protect the right to peaceful assembly during protests.

About a dozen masked people stormed into the Merlinka Festival, a cultural event at the Sarajevo art cinema Kriterion on 1 February. The attackers shouted homophobic insults such as, “There will be no [Pride] parade in Sarajevo” and, “There will be no faggots in Sarajevo,” then attacked three of the participants.

Sinan Alic said that an unknown man attacked him at approximately 11 a.m. last Saturday near his weekend home in Trakilovici, close to the town of Tuzla. Alic, who at one time was active in reporting on war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that he received threats by SMS in recent months.

The editor-in-chief of Slobodna Bosna said he considered a recent fire in the office to be a clear warning to the magazine.

Stefica Galic was beaten and her family has been threatened because of a documentary about her late husband, who helped save citizens’ lives during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

First academy on media law in South East Europe to kick off in Zagreb ZAGREB, 31 May 2012 – The first academy on media law in South East Europe will open in Zagreb, Croatia, on Monday, 4 June, under the auspices of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), with support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the […]