Bosnian Journalist Covering Dragicevic Protests Attacked

By Mladen Lakic | BIRN | Sarajevo Vladimir Kovacevic, a journalist at BN TV, one of the main media in Bosnia's Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, was attacked on Sunday in front of his home in Banja Luka, the administrative centre of the entity, BN TV reported."I passed by them [the assailants] without expecting anything to happen to me. Suddenly they attacked me," Kovacevic told BN TV, describing the attack.That night, Kovacevic had been covering the latest "Justice for David" protest in the city. For 155 days, the parents of David Dragicevic and citizens have been holding public protests, trying to force the authorities to resolve the case of the unexplained death of the 21-year-old man.“Before he was attacked, he sent material that will be published on Monday,” Suzana Radjen Todoric, editor-in-chief of BN TV, wrote on her Twitter profile.BN TV started its morning programme on Monday with a blank screen and message: "Open protest over the attack on a BN TV journalist. We are asking the Republika Srpska MUP [police] to reveal the attacker."Milorad Dodik, President of Republika Srpska, condemned the attack as an attack on media freedom that cannot be tolerated, calling on the police to urgently investigate the case.Data from Bosnian associations of Journalist note 40 cases this year in which journalists have reported that they were victims – including five death threats and 14 assaults and other forms of pressures.The OSCE’s Representative on Media Freedom, Harlem Desir, and the Head of the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bruce G. Berton, strongly condemned the severe beating of journalist Vladimir Kovacevic on Sunday night in Banja Luka."The negative rhetoric being used against the media must end, in order to prevent further such attacks against journalists. I urge the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to swiftly investigate this attack and bring its perpetrators to justice," the OSCE said in a press release on Monday.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/bosnian-journalist-physically-attacked-08-27-2018