Human Rights House Banja Luka hereby gives full support to the journalists of Buka, BN Television, Kapital and N1, regarding the attack by President Dodik
The President of the Republic of Srpska, Milorad Dodik, at the press conference held on Saturday in Banja Luka, in a slanderous and inciting manner, attacked journalists, as well as the media Buka, N1, Kapital and BN Television, stating that they are “treasonous towards the Republic of Srpska” by declaring them “enemies of the Serbian people”.
Milorad Dodik is the president of the Republic of Srpska, and he is also the president of the strongest and largest political organization in the Republic of Srpska, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats. De facto, he is also the most powerful political person in all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he has enormous power to mobilize institutions and citizens.
Acting from those positions, as well as from the position of a person who has real, factual control over all levers of government in the Republic of Srpska, including those executive-repressive, with statements against the media and journalists, Milorad Dodik, in addition to telling untruths, also seriously endangered security of journalists from these media directly putting “targets on their foreheads”.
The verbal violence, threatening tone and security threats of the President of Republic of Srpska have already largely created an atmosphere of fear in which the media, associations and individuals operate.
Human Rights House Banja Luka hereby gives its full support to the journalists of Buka, BN Television, Kapital and N1 and calls on the competent authorities to do their work honorably and honestly, and to protect journalists and the media, and the President of Republic of Srpska to stop targeting and calling ” traitors” and “enemies” all those who do not share his attitudes.
