prijava
SARAJEVO/BANJA LUKA, May 6 (FENA) - The BH Journalists Association and Free Media Help Line strongly have condemned the verbal attack of a party leader in the entity of Republika Srpska on N1 journalist Snežana Mitrović, after she posed a question to a politician Nenad Nešić.
The reporter asked the DNS leader Nenad Nešić if he, like the SDS leader Mirko Šarović, owns property in Belgrade or, like some other citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Dubai. Nešić verbally attacked Mitrović, responding with questions about her own family.
The politician mentioned Mitrović's brother, saying that he works as a spokesperson for a political party whose members own property in Dubai. He did not specify which political party or the names of those he referred to.
After other media representatives spoke up and stood up for their colleague, Nešić apologized but he continued with attacks on Mitrović, assaulting her privacy and personal integrity.
This comes as another in a series of verbal attacks of Bosnian politicians on journalists over the past few months, in which media representatives are tried to be discredited and humiliated on a personal basis.
The BH Journalists Association assessed as concerning that, political leaders and representatives of the institutions respond to journalistic questions with verbal violence, insults and humiliation, and it makes it more alarming that women journalists are targeted more often.
The association's Steering Board reminded the politicians and other officials that they are entitled to the right not to respond to the questions of media representatives if they, for any reason, do not want to. However, attempts to discredit and assault their personal and professional dignity cannot be a political argument or replace the answers to journalistic questions that are of public interest.
(FENA) S. R.
