Sarajevo, 27.08.2025. – The Sttering Committee of the BH Journalists Association and the Free Media Help Line are sending a public protest to the Police Department in Kakanj, whose officers questioned journalist Džana Omerović Zec, an employee of Radio Stari Grad, and filed a misdemeanor report against her with the Municipal Court in Kakanj for posting comments on the social network Facebook.
The Kakanj Police Department conducted an investigation and filed a misdemeanor charge against Džana Omerović Zec based on a report by Edin Bjelopoljak, director of the city’s Tourist Board. The report states that Omerović Zec called the “Kakanj Days” event “Kakanj Days of Sorrow and Sorrow” on her Facebook profile, and cites a long list of unresolved problems and needs of the city that the journalist listed, criticizing the organizers of the event and the spending of public money. “And the icing on the cake is the tourist board and its promotion. An invented position of a non-breadwinner who will use the budget for nonsense,” wrote Omerović Zec.
In the interpretation of the police inspectors, the journalist’s comment is “colloquial speech” which, as stated in the report, “is considered a derogatory or derisive term for an incompetent, lazy, irresponsible or backstabbing person.” They also claim that the journalist “insulted and belittled the efforts of those employed in the organization of the Kakanjske Days event”.
The Sttering Committee of the BH Journalists Association the initiation of this illegal procedure to be unacceptable and illegal, since it limits the freedom of expression, as well as the right to criticize persons in public positions. It is particularly worrying that the police inspectors interpret the content of the written comments in a manipulative way, and they present the feeling of being offended by the director of the Kakanj Tourist Board as an insult and belittling of all employees.
The Sttering Committee of the BH Journalists Association emphasizes that the misdemeanor proceedings were initiated based on a municipal decision, adopted in early 2025, some provisions of which are in conflict with Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms, and other international acts that protect freedom of speech and opinion.
BH Journalists have previously warned about attempts by the cantonal authorities in Sarajevo and Bihać to adopt legal norms contrary to the principles of the Constitution of BiH and European standards for the protection of freedom of expression in the media and on social networks. Thanks to the opposition of journalist organizations, media and civil society, such attempts were stopped, but apparently, the ideas of disproportionately restricting freedom of expression through the engagement of the police and inspectors have not been completely abandoned. In this context, the question arises as to what the future of freedom of speech and opinion is throughout the country, if local authorities in nearly 150 municipalities and cities in BiH start to follow the example of Kakanj?!
The Sttering Committee of the BH Journalists Association publicly demands that the Kakanj Police Department immediately withdraw the disputed misdemeanor charge against journalist Džana Omerović Zec. By doing so, they can make an institutional contribution to the protection of freedom of expression, and dispel the justified suspicion that the police structures in Kakanj are being abused for the sake of the director of the Tourist Board, who also has other legal mechanisms for protecting personal reputation, such as civil proceedings for defamation.
At the same time, BH Journalists call on the local authorities of Kakanj to urgently repeal the provisions of the Decision on Public Order and Peace that are contrary to European standards for the protection of freedom of expression.
Sttering Committee of BH Journalists
