TI BiH again under the attack of the regime

RS Prime Minister, Milorad Dodik, in the show of the Prnjavor TV Kanal 3, broadcasted on 13th May has brought to the public a series of false and offensive charges against Transparency International (TI BiH), calling the employees of this organisation ‘criminals“, „thiefs“ and even „devils“.

These kind of statements by Mr Dodik represent another attempt to discredit this organisation, which for years has been pointing to irregularities and acts of corruption in the operations of the RS government led by Mr Dodik.  Using offensive language, unfounded conspiracy theories and accusations according to which TI BIH is involved in criminal acts, Mr Dodik showed once again that in RS the voice of the civil society or any kind of criticism directed towards the RS Government is being systematically suppressed. Bearing in mind that this is an electoral year, it is evident that this attack on TI BiH is part of a dirty pre-electoral campaign designed for the purpose of confronting those who are not like-minded, as well as the attempt to divert the attention of dissatisfied citizens from the government’s failures to fictive enemies and international conspiracies.

Just as a reminder, TI BiH has also in the past been exposed to similar attacks and defamations, when the media at the service of the regime led the campaign against TI BiH, with the aim of discrediting this organisation after its reports on the privatisation of an oil industry in RS had been published. At that time, for security reasons, TI BiH suspended its activities for a month and pressed charges against media involved in this campaign.

For all these reasons, TI BiH will again use all the legal instruments at its disposal and considering the damage to reputation of this organisation, TI BiH will press charges for defamation against MR Dodik, in an attempt to prevent future attacks and discreditation of TI BiH.