Glas Srpske demonstrated that they do not care for court decisions, nor for the truth

Banja Luka, 16. March 2012 – After the Glas Srpske published in June 2008 a series of articles that directly attempted to discredit the work of Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina, accusing the representatives of this organization that they were involved in crime and racketeering businessmen, TI BiH has filed a lawsuit against this newspaper for defamation.
The lawsuit resulted in the first instance judgment of the Municipal Court in Banja Luka, which clearly stated that the allegations of Glas Srpske were untrue and without any evidence. The court also stated that the false allegations of Glas Srpske may affect public opinion and distort the reputation of the employees of TI BiH.

Only seven days after the judgment, Glas Srpske again made the same allegations, clearly not caring for any decision of the Court, nor for the veracity of the information given to the public. Specifically, in the issue from 15.03.2012, in the article “Suicide of the owner of the gas stations Parma trend”, Glas Srpske again makes statement about TI BIH as a group of racketeers who were blackmailing the owner of Parma trend. This time, Glas Srpske went even further, considering that they are unscrupulously using a family tragedy to attack and discredit an organization that invests all its efforts in the fight against corruption.

The editorial policy of Glas Srpske is a clear indicator that in the Republika Srpska there is still no respect of the principles of objective journalism, nor for the Press Codex, while at the same time these reports violate basic human rights through organized campaigns against individuals and organizations. Given the fact that Nezavisne Novine also published the allegations from Glas Srpske, TI BIH is afraid of the same campaign which led in 2008 to a public lynch of this organization, which forced TI BIH to close its office for a while, fearing for the safety of its employees.

In the judgment of the Municipal Court it is stated that by spreading information which have no evidence and which are indicating someone as a criminal group, “mass media cannot take the role of courts”. The management and the editors of Glas Srpske obviously decided to be above courts, and to judge others, without allowing to be judged.