Protest of the BHRT Trade Union ends: Black screen was not shown even in the darkest days

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Independent Trade Union of BHRT workers held a one-hour protest today due to the catastrophic situation and blocked accounts of BHRT, which threatens to halt operations.

Damir Smital, president of the Independent Trade Union of BHRT workers, said that the state is unfortunately condemned to incompetent politicians who only care about their seats.

"I will not address those who called for the mining of the public service building, nor those false promoters of democratic values who call for non-payment of the TV subscription fee," he said.

He added that, instead, he will address those who are "full of talk" about Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"Are you ashamed that you didn't lift a finger to resolve the issue of the public service? We demand from you the immediate unblocking of BHRT's accounts, a legal solution for the payment of the TV tax. Amendments to the law can be done under urgent procedure in Parliament. If you don't know how, we will help you. If you do nothing, you are no better than those we are not addressing today. In fact, you might be worse," Smital said.

The president of the Coordination of six representative trade unions in the Sarajevo Canton, Faruk Bešlić, commented, among other things, on the statements of SNSD Main Board member and former party secretary Rajko Vasić that he would mine the BHRT building.

"You cannot. The public word cannot be mined," Bešlić said from the podium.

They warned the authorities that they could face more than 800 criminal charges against all those who threaten their existence.

"It won't work, this is a warning protest. We will not silently watch the decline. We will take all measures at our disposal. After all, we are the fourth estate, we have microphones and cameras, and they are not politically colored," they added.

Renowned Bosnian director Dino Mustafić also addressed the gathering, saying that the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina is not resolving the issue of non-payment of the TV tax and that everything without an ethnic prefix but with a Bosnian prefix is being stifled.

"When they cannot control the media, they sentence it to silence from parliamentary benches. They want to leave only servile public services alive, which are in someone's service. It should not be surprising that such politicians see the state public service as a problem that must be urgently resolved. Many of us are emotionally tied to this house. We have no right to forget that. We must not allow this to go down the drain without resistance. The black screen on this television must never be shown, not even in the darkest days of our history," Mustafić said.