4th and 5th April 2019. Hotel Novotel Bristol, Sarajevo
On the 4th and 5th of April 2019, the Press Council in BiH participated in the final conference of the Council of Europe and the European Union Joint Program “Strengthening of Judicial Expertise in the Field of Freedom of Expression and Media in South-East Europe – JUFREX” in Sarajevo.
Ljiljana Zurovac, Program Director and Marija Pudarić, Project Coordinator of the Press Council, exchanged experience and success stories of the Press Councils activities under the program “Strengthening the Judicial Expertise in the Area of Freedom of Expression and Media in South East Europe – JUFREX” with colleagues, media actors, from Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Northern Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During the second day of the conference, the comprehensive results of the Program were presented. Drahoslav Štefanek, Head of Office of Council of Europe in Sarajevo, underlined the need for the further improvement of the relationship of the media community and the judiciary, especially in the area of freedom of expression and media, both in BiH and in the region. He emphasized the importance of these efforts, as well as his personal solidarity with Adi Kebo, journalist of Žurnal, who suffered a physical attack on March 28th 2019 while on a job assignment.
The Press Council, as one of the media actors from BiH within the three-year program “JUFREX”, organized several inter-professional seminars for representatives of media and judiciary in BiH, as well as the round table “Freedom of expression and the Internet”. The themes of the seminars were pre-judicial mediation process of media self-regulatory and regulatory bodies, Internet and hate speech, freedom of expression and ethical standards, free and responsible journalism and good enforcement of the judiciary.
Dario Novalić, President of the Press Council in BiH Steering Board, contributed to the realization of this program in BiH by creating the “Lexicon of Judicial and Media Expressions in BiH” in order to improve and help a better understanding of journalists and the judiciary in BiH.
The third Regional Master Class of the Press Council in BiH was organized, in addition to the assistance of UNESCO / EC, with the assistance of the Council of Europe and the European Union and the program “Strengthening of Judicial Expertise in the Field of Freedom of Expression and Media in South-East Europe – JUFREX”. So that the Press Council in BiH was able to invite not only the self-regulatory bodies of the Western Balkans and Turkey, but also representatives of the judiciary from the region.
The continuation of the program “Strengthening the judicial expertise in the field of freedom of expression and the media in South-East Europe – JUFREX” will focus on the protection of journalists, the expansion of beneficiaries to police services, as well as the strengthening of cooperation with Universities within the Horizontal Facility co-operative initiative.