SDA: The "Troika" promised European standards, but brought BiH to a dramatic decline in media freedom

(Patria) - The media freedom index of Reporters Without Borders indicates a worrying and continuous decline in Bosnia and Herzegovina's rating since 2023 and the rise to power of the "Troika" parties.

In 2021 and 2022, during the period when the SDA led the legislative and executive authorities, Bosnia and Herzegovina was by far the best-ranked country in the Western Balkans in terms of media freedom. Our country was then ahead of all countries in the region, including Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, and Serbia, the party announced today on World Press Freedom Day.

"However, since 2023, a steep decline in Bosnia and Herzegovina's reputation has begun. Instead of institutions strengthening media freedoms, protecting journalists, and ensuring the independence of public broadcasters, we are witnessing increasingly open pressure from the authorities on the media, public targeting of journalists, and attempts to forcibly bring public space under party control. Those who promised citizens 'European standards' have managed to reduce BiH to the standards of autocratic regimes in just a few years.

The "Troika" has shown that it understands media freedom exclusively as the right of the media to praise the government. As soon as the media begin to point out current corruption, nepotism, incompetence, betrayal of state interests, or abuse of institutions, pressure, insults, labeling, and attempts at financial or political elimination follow.

At the same time, party cadres and management 'that follow the "Troika's" policies' are installed at the head of public broadcasters, while independent media face increasingly difficult working conditions. A government that places public broadcasters under political control, ignores their financial problems, and targets media and journalists is not building a European state but an authoritarian system.

On Press Freedom Day, we call on domestic institutions, international organizations, journalistic associations, and representatives of the European Union to seriously consider and oppose the dramatic decline in media freedoms in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the current mandate. Media freedom must not be a declarative value that the government adorns itself with in Brussels while stifling every voice of criticism at home," stated the SDA.