The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republika Srpska issued a statement today in which it claims that journalists are putting pressure on the police and judicial authorities with today’s gathering in Banja Luka.
The RS MUP states in a statement that today’s “the alleged spontaneous gathering of media representatives in front of the Police Department of Banjaluka represents another direct pressure of the media community on the work of judicial authorities”.
The MUP claims that journalists “by twisting the fact that they defend the rights of journalists, they consciously ignore that the investigation is being conducted by order of the Banjaluka District Public Prosecutor’s Office against an NN official and three representatives of a media outlet for the criminal offense of “Breach of the confidentiality of proceedings” from Article 337, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Srpska.
“In the same way, the media is consciously manipulating the story of the journalist and the right to protect the journalist’s source, although the only accurate fact here is that specifically, the person NM is suspected of having written the text with data from the ongoing investigation, thus committing KD” Violation of the secrecy of the proceedings””. it says in the Ministry of Interior’s announcement, referring to journalist Nikola Morača.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs states that there is no law that amnesties journalists from criminal liability, i.e. that every journalist as well as every citizen is obliged to respect the existing positive legal acts, and that all recommendations and European conventions on human rights and the rights of journalists clearly state that media freedom also implies moral responsibility that all media workers assume for their actions.
“In the same conventions and recommendations of the EU and the Council of Europe, it is stated that there are three fundamental issues when it comes to journalistic ethics: truth, independence and understanding the consequences of journalistic and media actions. In this case, none of the media representatives raises the issue of victim protection in the text of the named wrote, nor why the editors have already deleted it from the digital edition”.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RS called on media representatives – whose work, as they say, they appreciate and respect – to calm down and let the institutions do their work.
(World)