Banja Luka/Sarajevo, 19 October 2026 – The Steering Committee of the BH Journalists Association and the Free Media Help Line (FMHL) strongly condemn SNSD President Milorad Dodik’s verbal attack on BHRT journalist Vladimir Šušak during a press conference in Banja Luka today. After Šušak asked Republika Srpska Prime Minister Savo Minić about the price and quantity of coal and equipment procured for the Ugljevik Thermal Power Plant, Dodik told the journalist that he (journalist) is “not the public”, that he was “not interested in BHRT” and that “our television is RTRS.” At the same time, he ordered that Šušak’s microphone be taken away, telling him: “Come on, get lost, bro.”
Although the question was addressed to the Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, not to him, and despite holding no official position in any public institution of the entity, Milorad Dodik took it upon himself to respond to the journalist. In doing so, he belittled both the journalist and the media outlet he works for and attempted to completely exclude him from the press conference.
The Steering Committee of BH Journalists reminds and emphasises that Milorad Dodik is not the person who gets to decide who does and does not constitute the public, nor does he have the right to determine which media outlets and journalists are allowed to ask questions. His political position within SNSD does not entitle him to speak on behalf of the Government or any other institution of Republika Srpska, insulting and silencing journalists or treating them as unwelcome simply because he is personally dissatisfied with their questions. Questions about public expenditure, procurement and energy prices are neither provocations nor abuses of the journalistic profession; they are an integral part of professional journalism and citizens’ right to be informed.
Given the severe financial difficulties that the national public broadcaster has been facing for months, Dodik’s statement that he is not interested in BHRT and that RTRS (entity’s public broadcaster) is “their television” is particularly troubling. Neither public broadcaster, BHRT nor RTRS, is a private media outlet whose role is to report according to the wishes of political leaders. BHRT has an obligation to inform citizens throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, and its journalists have both the right and the professional duty to ask questions of all those who wield political power.
Such outbursts are not merely harmless verbal incidents. When politicians, including Dodik, publicly humiliate journalists, question their legitimacy and attempt to silence them, they send a message of intolerance towards critical reporting, contribute to a hostile environment for journalists and further undermine media freedom in Bosnia and Herzegovina. BH Journalists therefore demand that the Government of Republika Srpska publicly apologise to Vladimir Šušak, as it allowed the SNSD president to abuse the institutional setting and use an event organised by the RS Government to publicly attack and belittle a BHRT journalist.
We also call on all other public officials in Republika Srpska and throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina to refrain from verbal attacks on media professionals and to respond to journalists’ questions with arguments rather than insults, pressure and attempts to exclude “unwelcome” media outlets from the public sphere.
The microphone belongs to the journalist asking the questions, and the public has the right to answers!
