Patria agency exposed to threats and pressures due to reporting on FUP and Lukač

Novinska agencija Patria and journalists of this media house have found themselves in the crosshairs of hidden and real characters, known also from crime chronicles, who have issued the most vile threats and insults over the past few days.

Our media house came under attack from known and unknown „internet heroes“ after we began uncovering irregularities regarding the admission of candidates to the Special Unit of the FUP and the removal of four Bosniak candidates who were among the top 15 on the Commission's list.

Namely, FUP Director Dragan Lukač unilaterally removed these successful candidates and replaced them with those much lower ranked, but whose national affiliation suited him more than the four removed young men.

All these actions have been reported to the relevant institutions, as well as to the OHR, from which the aggrieved candidates have sought to rectify this obvious discrimination.

As professionals working in the public interest for the social community, the Patria agency could not remain silent about the fact that the Director of the Federal Police Administration, Dragan Lukač, made his own list of candidates for admission to the rank of police officer, replacing candidates from positions 10, 11, 12, and 14 with those from positions 18, 27, 42, and 48.

For the sake of the honorable and honest police officers working in the FUP, as well as in other police agencies, our journalistic duty was to ask the FUP leadership (Dragan Lukač) why they initially sought candidates with exceptional abilities and athletes, only to then choose less capable ones solely because they are of a different nationality? Our duty is also to point out all the irregularities that accompanied this competition, because tomorrow that police force will protect us as well. Perhaps precisely to uncover who is sending threats to journalists of the Patria agency.

Every new complaint received, such as the one that some of the admitted candidates have connections with Sarajevo criminal circles, and that their age is not appropriate for admission to the FUP Special Police, was an additional motivation for us to uncover the truth and point out evident shortcomings to the authorities.

The attacks on media freedoms and journalists to which Patria has been exposed over the past few days are clear evidence that certain groups and individuals, who were primarily bothered by reporting on crime, corruption, and irregularities regarding admission to the FUP, are trying at all costs to stop journalists from professionally performing their work through threats. We tell everyone that these threats and pressures will not stop us from doing our job.

Likewise, we call on other media outlets that have received letters from candidates to get involved in this case instead of attacking the Patria agency, as was done by the portal Slobodna Bosna, which is close to the Minister of Interior of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Aljoša Čampari.

The editorial board of the Novinska agencija Patria will inform all police agencies in BiH, the US Embassy, the OHR, the OSCE, the EU Delegation, and the BH Journalists Association about this attack on media freedom and the threats we are facing. We view the incoming emails and comments on the official Facebook page as pressure and a threat to stop writing about the case of the Federal Police Administration (FUP), as well as certain political power brokers, about crime and corruption, and all the illegalities facing Bosnian society.

No one will ever stop the Patria agency and the journalists of this media house on the path to uncovering the truth, no matter how powerful the politicians and criminal circles involved.

We hope that the police authorities will do their part and uncover those issuing the most serious threats.

Editorial board of the Patria agency