Sarajevo, 26 April 2024. – The BH Journalists Association´s Steering Committee and the Free Media Help Line strongly condemn the inappropriate statements by Mr. Elmedin Konaković, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH) and the targeting of the journalists and media at the press conference yesterday in Sarajevo.

By abusing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs public space and his own ministerial position, Mr. Konaković tried to criminalize a number of media and journalists without argument and any evidence, calling them “part of the media-judicial mafia”. Just because they wrote about the police-judicial action of arresting persons who are suspected of various criminal offenses and connection with the “Tito and Dino” drug cartel. Konaković said that certain media and journalists are trying to “make connections” to him with the mentioned criminal group and that with their inscriptions they are “threatening the European path of Bosnia and Herzegovina”.

The BH Journalists´ Steering Committee reminds that Mr. Konaković had been verbally and brutally threatening the BH media for years from his  various positions in the public authorities, and attacking especially those journalists who write critically about the ways in which he performs his public duties. At the same time, Mr. Konaković politically misleads the public, especially through social networks, interpreting criticism directed at him as a public official, only as an attack on state institutions and/or the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its European path.

For the BH Journalists´ Steering Committee, it is particularly significant that Mr. Konaković did not use legal and legitimate means in any reaction to the possible unprofessional work by the journalists and media such as denials, requests for the corrections in media articles, and filing complaints to the independent (self) regulatory bodies or through defamation lawsuits.

The BH Journalists´ Steering Committee once again publicly condems    Konaković’s behavior yesterday, considering it an inappropriate attack on media freedoms and the journalists´ professional integrity aimed  to criminalize the media and ruining their reputation in the public, including minimizing the investogative contribution of the BH media in exposing this international criminal grpup. In that context, BH Journalists Association  warns Minister Konaković that a system of legal actions against him will be launched for the freedom of expression violations, if he does not stop the constant pressure on the media and journalists.

Steering Commmittee of the BH Journalists Assocciation