SARAJEVO, May 18 (Hina) - The Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina is concerned about the obstructed distribution of the Zagreb-based weekly "Nacional" in the Herzegovina region and it believes that it represents an
attempt to stifle freedom of expression, OHR spokesman James Ferguson said in Sarajevo on Tuesday. He said Westendorp's office had information that over the past two weeks all "Nacional" copies have been removed from news-stands in Herzegovina in an organised manner, and that certain people had obviously bought all copies of the last two issues to prevent them from reaching the readers. Apart from this, the weekly has still not received money for the allegedly sold copies in the region. It is not accidental that the issues in question are "Nacional" issues, because the paper has tackled the sensitive case of the Hercegovacka Banka from Mostar and the issue of functioning o
SARAJEVO, May 18 (Hina) - The Office of the High Representative in
Bosnia-Herzegovina is concerned about the obstructed distribution
of the Zagreb-based weekly "Nacional" in the Herzegovina region and
it believes that it represents an attempt to stifle freedom of
expression, OHR spokesman James Ferguson said in Sarajevo on
Tuesday.
He said Westendorp's office had information that over the past two
weeks all "Nacional" copies have been removed from news-stands in
Herzegovina in an organised manner, and that certain people had
obviously bought all copies of the last two issues to prevent them
from reaching the readers.
Apart from this, the weekly has still not received money for the
allegedly sold copies in the region.
It is not accidental that the issues in question are "Nacional"
issues, because the paper has tackled the sensitive case of the
Hercegovacka Banka from Mostar and the issue of functioning of
security services in the Croat-majority areas of the Federation of
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"Nacional" editor-in-chief Ivo Pukanic sent a letter to High
Representative Carlos Westendorp, warning him about the incidents,
Ferguson said stressing the OHR completely agreed with the
statement that this was a case of serious violation of freedom of
expression, for which "some elements in Hercegovina are
responsible".
Ferguson said this was not the first time a case like this happened,
because similar things happened with another Zagreb weekly,
"Globus", and the Rijeka-based daily "Jutarnji list", ahead of last
year's elections in the country.
Problems which these two papers had to face never happened with
papers controlled in any way by the Croatian Democratic Union
(HDZ), Ferguson said, adding the international community would not
tolerate attempts to threaten media freedom in Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
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