The number of cases where journalists have been attacked and threatened has increased over the past year compared to 2020. There are 27 reported cases or 6 more than in the previous year, while the non-response of the judiciary remains a concern.
Journalists during their reporting continue to be endangered, attacked in various ways, both physically and in other mental ways. Even when cases are reported to the police, the judiciary does not deal with the cases for years.
The executive director of the Association of Journalists of Kosovo, Getoarbë Mulliqi-Bojaj, says for KosovaPress, that since last year, 27 cases of attacks against journalists have been reported.
She says many of the attackers have not yet been brought to justice.
“So far, 27 cases of attacks and threats against journalists have been reported, which is three cases more than last year, while it is 6 cases more than the previous year. As a figure it may seem very small, but we are talking about a country where there are 800 journalists, members of AJK, so if we talk about 27 people, we are talking about a 5% of journalists who are attacked, then of course, there are also those cases that are reported only to the police, so there are discrepancies between that of AJK and the police, there are journalists who do not want to make public the cases and report them directly to the police. We have had two recent cases where we received a report from the police, the journalists wanted to remain anonymous, we know who the journalists are, and the police have found the attackers or the persons who threatened them. The most serious case this year, although we cannot categorize it as more serious because they are all attacks and we advocate not to violate the rights of journalists and the attacks are all attacks anyway, but at the beginning of the year we had the case of the journalist Visar Duriqi, i.e., in February of this year, where we had a very unpleasant experience, it is also very worrying for us because attackers or criminals have not yet been brought to justice,” says Mulliqi-Bojaj.
KosovaPress News Agency journalist in Mitrovica, Alidin Damati, talks about his experience, about the tensions in North Mitrovica in the neighborhood “Kroi i Vitakut – Vitak’s Well” in 2012. He recalls that from the protesters there, he had received various insults, and that this apparently was not enough for them, as they had started throwing stones and bottles at the journalists.
“At Kroi i Vitakut when there were tensions at that time in the North and we went to report from this place, we needed to take pictures, I worked at the newspaper and we needed pictures and things like that. We asked KFOR for help, and they promised they’d help us, and at the moment when they negotiated with the protesters they allowed us to approach five meters away from them and the KFOR cordon was in the middle, and at the moment that we, journalists approached, insults started, insults have started on a national basis, they have started throwing bottles and stones at us so much, that KFOR had to use weapons and shoot in the air to calm the situation. There have been times when I was attacked in protests by radicals in North Mitrovica. This happened in the presence of Kosovo Police, the station in the North, who reacted as if nothing had happened, they pretended not to see, turned their backs and left. What made it even more tragic was the fact that members of KFOR were there and they didn’t help me”, adds Damati.
Diamant Bajra, the journalist of the Blic newspaper, also had experience with threats and attacks. He talks about the time when he was threatened by an imam from Peja. All this, according to him, happened because he did not like the report of the journalist Bajra, who says that when the imam in question called him, he was also informed about the journalist’s family.
“Years ago I received a phone call from an imam from Peja who didn’t like a reporting that I did, even though I tried to be very professional because he had doubted that I was not professional, I confronted the parties, interviewed all parties. At that time I contacted the imam, he had a lawyer, and so through both the lawyer and the imam, I was able to include all the parties mentioned when I reported. The case was about a family who reported the imam of Peja to the police because the grave of one of their relatives was opened, and after the body of the family member of this family was moved, someone else was buried in that grave. Probably the imam was upset why such a thing happened and when I contacted the imam for the second time, it seems that he was well informed about me and my family because he told me, I am quoting him ‘Very good that you called me because I know who you are, I know where your family lives, I know where you live, and I know everything about you and from now on you will have problems me’. What he mentions to me next is that he has connections up to the presidency and can challenge me in any way. I didn’t quit, I have continued my journey, I have not had contact with the latter but I have received messages from others that I should withdraw, and fix the relations with him, but that is not that I have dealt with him anymore, because I thought justice would act or it would do something”, says Bajra.
Almost four years have passed since the case of Diamant Bajra and since that moment no justice body has taken it as a basis for a case, except for the prosecution, for which he says that, it contacted him once to ask him if he was interested in continuing with the case.