Sarajevo March 5, 2024. The Board of Directors of the BH Journalists Association and the Helpline for Journalists call on the competent police and prosecutorial institutions in Sarajevo Canton to urgently conduct an investigation and take legal measures to sanction the persons behind the threats against Franjo Šarčević, editor of the Prometej portal.

Threats to Franjo Šarčević, including organized harassment and incitement via social networks and through the contents of a number of media outlets, followed after Šarčević published an author’s text entitled Another senseless Independence Day, in which he commented on the statements and iconography of the solemn celebration of March 1 – Day of the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and after criticism directed at the mayor of Sarajevo, Benjamina Karić, after the publication of a photo with a boy in a camouflage uniform.

The Management Board of BH Journalists strongly condemns the threatening messages and hate speech towards Franja Šarčević, and expects an effective response from the police authorities in order to eliminate possible security risks for Šarčević and his family. This includes the immediate police arrest and questioning of the persons behind the social media profiles from which the threats were sent, as well as the announced “arrival at the faculty” and “removal” of Šarčević from the Faculty of Science and Mathematics in Sarajevo, where he works as a professor. The need for urgent police action and the protection of the editor of Prometej is based on the fact that he has previously faced brutal threats of violence, mostly when he wrote and spoke against the views of the political majority in Sarajevo, Mostar or other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

For the Steering Committee of BH Journalists, the fact that a number of media based in Sarajevo also contributed to the spread of hatred and intolerance towards Franja Šarčević, violating the code of journalistic ethics and giving priority to “patriotic journalism” instead of objective and truthful reporting, with a reasonable acceptance of different views, is of particular concern to the Board of BH Journalists. as an inalienable part of freedom of expression and pluralism of opinion. No media or journalist should spread hatred towards anyone, and especially not towards other journalists, even when they do not agree with their opinion or have completely different beliefs.

Board of Directors of the Association/BH Journalists Association

PHOTO: Adi Kebo/Žurnal.info