Sarajevo/Banja Luka, February 8, 2025 –The Steering Committee of BH Journalists and Free Media Help Line assess as illegal and unconstitutional the attempts by the President of Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik to criminalize journalists, media and civil society organizations for what he claims is the illegal spending of donations from the United States Agency for International Aid – USAID, and the overthrow of Republika Srpska at the behest of the U.S. administration in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
At a press conference held in Banja Luka on Friday with a live broadcast by the public broadcaster RTRS, Milorad Dodik announced police investigations against those who received USAID grants and other forms of American aid through a series of political manipulations, severe slander, street language and a threatening tone.
President Dodik particularly lashed out at the Srpska.info portal and BN television, accusing them without arguments of working in the interest of foreign donors and against the president of Republika Srpska and his family. He also presented factually unfounded assessments about the work of Nezavisne novine, stating that these newspapers were edited and printed in the US Embassy in Sarajevo, and against the Klix portal and the public service BHRT. And not only did he put the aforementioned media and their journalists on the “pillar of shame,” exposing them to condemnation and security risks in the environments in which they work, Dodik completely falsely informed the citizens of Republika Srpska about the amounts of donations for the media and the civil sector, and deliberately kept silent about the fact that he, the companies owned by his family, the SNSD party and the authorities in Republika Srpska received hundreds of millions of dollars from the same donor sources.
Although verbal outbursts and political escapades by Milorad Dodik are not uncommon in public communication, at yesterday’s press conference he not only “conducted an investigation”, but also “judged” BNTV and the Srpska.info portal, and in the manner of a political inquisition, announced the institutional persecution of journalists, i.e. dissidents in the media and civil sector.
For BH Journalists, the mention of Željko Kopanja, the deceased owner and editor of Nezavisne novine, is particularly unacceptable and dehumanizing in a problematic political context, the credibility of which cannot be verified today. BH Journalists reject the intention to posthumously destroy the reputation of the former editor of Nezavisne novine, and call on Dodik, as the president of Republika Srpska, to insist on revealing the perpetrators of the bomb attack on Žaljko Kopanja back in 1999, as well as the final punishment of the perpetrators of that crime.
Finally, the Steering Committee of BH journalists calls on the “accused” media and journalists from Republika Srpska to initiate a collective lawsuit against Milorad Dodik for false accusations, with faith in a fair trial, independent work and previous practice of judicial institutions from Banja Luka, which in one of their 2020 verdicts concluded that “receiving funds from USAID is not a disgrace for the one who receives such funds” and that “such persons, In the judgement’s judgment, they should not be subjected to hatred, contempt or ridicule…”
Steering Committee of BH journalists
