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Alert

Second journalist attacked in Bosnian Serb territory

(RSF/IFEX) - In a letter to the international community's high
representative, Wolfgang Petritsch, and to the minister of the interior of
the Serbian entity in Bosnia, Sredoje Novic, RSF is protesting the attack
and death threats against journalist Mirko Srdic. "Faced with the fresh
upsurge in attacks on journalists, we ask the international community's
representatives and local authorities to take all necessary measures to
assure the security of media workers and to find and punish the responsible
parties as soon as possible," stated RSF. "Especially when one considers
that the author of this second attack has been identified: he is Mirko
Stojcinovic, the mayor of Doboj (north-east)," the organisation added. RSF
also asked authorities in the Bosnian Serb entity to condemn this elected
official's behaviour and to immediately launch an investigation.




In a Doboj hotel on the evening of 3 November, Stojcinovic, the city's
mayor, attacked Srdic, a correspondent of the Belgrade-based independent
press agency Beta and journalist of Bosnia-Herzegovina television, and
threatened to have him killed. The mayor hit him in the face and threatened
to "liquidate him if he did not leave Doboj briskly." The incident took
place with a number of witnesses present. This attack follows the broadcast
of a report on local corruption by Srdic. On 22 October, Zeljko Kopanja,
director of the independent newspaper "Nezavisne Novine", was seriously
injured in a bomb attack. He lost both his legs and suffered serious
injuries to his abdomen (see IFEX alerts of 25 October and 22 October 1999).