The final conference presenting the results of co-operation between the European Union, the Council of Europe and the BH Journalists Association was held in Sarajevo on April 7th.
The conference was opened by Bojana Urumova, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Sarajevo, emphasizing the exceptional importance of the dialogue between these two professional BH communities: the judiciary and the media, developed within the joint project of the Council of Europe and the European Union "Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Media in BiH, JUFREX II".
"Journalists and representatives of BH judicial institutions work today more as allies than it was the case before, and I truly believe that this is the greatest value of the JUFREX project," said Ms. Urumova.
Borka Rudic, Secretary General of the BH Journalists Association said that in the past two years in cooperation with the Council of Europe, four interprofessional seminars and two webinars were organized. Some of the topics that were dealt with were hate speech and online threats to journalists, secret filming, economic situation of the media during pandemics and the consequences of the pandemic on the work of journalists. The contribution to the protection of freedom of expression and integrity of the journalistic profession through JUFREX 2 was given through the access of free legal aid for at least 240 journalists, as well as the publication of 5 editions of E-Journals, 5 expert analyses and at least 250 thematic texts, analyses and reports.
Beside representatives of the media community, this Conference was also attended by representatives of prosecutors, the judiciaries and lawyers. it was pointed out that despite the progress that has been made so far, there are still challenges that Bosnia and Herzegovina faces in terms of the safety of journalists, political pressures on media as well as online hate speech.
This event was organized in cooperation with the BH Journalists Association within the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, and its action on “Freedom of expression and freedom of the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina (JUFREX)”.
