BH Journalists Condemn Threats Against Journalist Dino Durmić

(Patria) - The Management Board of the BH Journalists Association and the Journalist Help Line strongly condemn the verbal threats and insults, including death threats, against Federal Television – FTV journalist Dino Durmić, made via the social network Facebook by Melisa Butković from Živinice, owner of a flower shop in that BiH city.

Butković is one of 11 persons arrested on suspicion of committing the criminal acts of organized crime and drug trafficking, as part of an international police operation in the area of Živinice and Banovići, conducted on June 3 this year by the State Investigation and Protection Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina in cooperation with the ministries of interior of Austria, Slovenia and Croatia.

After being released from custody, Melisa Butković wrote a series of insulting and threatening messages to journalist Durmić via her Facebook profile, threatening to sue him for his report on the police operation, broadcast on FTV.

Below this FB post, hateful and discrediting messages about the journalist and his family followed, along with calls for "slapping", "beating" and an explicit threatening comment that the journalist "has a head exactly for a sniper".

The Management Board of BH Journalists considers these threats disturbing, dangerous to the life of Dino Durmić and his family, especially given that they followed a journalistic report on the police operation of arrests and short-term detention of persons suspected of international-scale crime.

At the same time, these threats represent a brutal violation of the right to freedom of expression and a serious attack on the journalistic profession, whose task is to report on matters of public interest such as this police operation and suspicions of committing a serious criminal offense.

The Management Board of BH Journalists expresses full solidarity with colleague Dino Durmić, and calls on the Ministry of Interior of Tuzla Canton and the Cantonal Prosecutor's Office in Tuzla to urgently investigate the mentioned threats and punish the persons behind them, the Management Board of the BH Journalists Association announced.