The interview with Sebija Izetbegovic - the director of the Clinical center University of Sarajevo - was first announced on October 25th; but suddenly, it was removed from the schedule of the Radio and Television of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHRT) without any explanation. Production and broadcasting of the interview raised a lot of concerns and questions among citizens and media experts in Bosnia and Herzegovina about the (in)dependence of the state broadcaster from external influence.
According to Beta, Serbian media as well as Serbian citizens are expected to become a kind of megaphone which amplifies and repeats the messages of the leader. The political élite is striving to expel the few media that critically report against it from public communication, and a new discipline is being developed in the form of direct disruption of communication of oppositional representatives.
The murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose investigation has led to early elections in Malta, is one of the most tremendous news of media freedom lately. It is all the more shocking, as this mafia-style assassination (the journalist's car being thrown into the air) takes place in a member country of the European Union - a union which, theoretically, once again watches the journalists' rights and safety. The journalist had written about the involvement of the Maltese Prime Minister in the Panama files. Her works focused on investigative reporting into government corruption, nepotism, patronage, allegations of money laundering.
At the beginning of October, the Senate Culture Committee gave a positive opinion on a draft law amending the Agerpres (The Romanian National Press Agency) operating law, whereby the head of the agency could be dismissed by the Romanian Parliament. The project was initiated by the Minister of Culture, Lucian Romaşcanu, and aims at the dismissal of the general director of the Agerpres National Agency, following a possible parliamentary vote against the Agency's annual activity report, but without discussing possible criteria other than the political ones, which would underpin the rejection of that report.
Compared to other countries with precarious democracy, in Romania journalists do not do so badly in terms of freedom of speech. There are minor aggressions, and there is also a vigilant civil society and on ramparts, which immediately draw attention upon them. One of the most active media monitors in Romania, ActiveWatch, publishes annual reports on the state of press freedom and issues press releases shortly after scandals. The real threat to press freedom is financial constraint. For being a journalist in Romania you need to have your “safety nets”. A lot of journalists spoke about that in a recent press conference. One of the conclusions was that many Romanian journalists do not do their job out of fear of being fired.
Curated by Radio Popolare - an OBCT mediapartner within ECPMF project - this broadcast is about Serbia. The OBCT correspondent from Belgrade Atonela Riha reports on freedom of the press in the country.
More and more often the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama is arrogant toward journalists during his press conferences. After his last insults the Union of Albanian Journalist announced an official boycott of Rama’s public speeches.
Even in Croatia preparations are underway for the adoption of a law on protection of whistleblowers. The action plan for the implementation of the anti-corruption strategy 2015-2020 foresees that a law on whistleblowing is being adopted in the third quarter of 2018. The government is creating a working group to elaborate the project, but according to H -Alter Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic will find a way to “mitigate the impact” of a provision on this matter.
122 journalists entered prison in October. Attempting to base the international cooperation on a strategic ground rather than democratic values, Turkey has shut its ears to critics against rights violations committed during the State of Emergency in the wake of July 15, 2016 coup attempt. However, the issue of media freedom has acquired an unprecedented international dimension. Bianet: read the full article in English
Dissatisfied with the way of drafting the new Media Strategy, whose text was supposed to be completed and put up for public debate, representatives of journalist and media associations have withdrawn from the working group of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia. Leading journalist associations are calling for the formation of a new working group and for including experts and the civil society in it.
