Attacks on Balkan Media Unchecked, HRW Says

Western Balkan governments and the European Union have over the past year failed to take action to address the issues hindering media freedom in the region, the NGO Human Rights Watch, HRW, said in the 2016 update of its media freedom report.

It added that new, troubling cases of threats and attacks on journalists had meanwhile emerged - but also remained unpunished.

"At a time when it has never been more important, independent journalism is up against the wall in the Western Balkans," Lydia Gall, Western Balkans researcher at Human Rights Watch, said.

"That won't change unless the EU makes absolutely clear to Western Balkan governments that their European aspirations depend on a thriving and free media," she added, speaking specifically about Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia.

In one case the NGO mentioned, in October, the editor of Gazeta Express in Kosovo received death threats via social media following the broadcast of his documentary on war crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA.

HRW points out that while the European Commission and the Enlargement Commissioner, Johannes Hahn, have expressed concern about media freedom in the region, they have spoken only in general terms, without detailed recommendations on how to address the lack of effective investigations by individual governments into attacks on journalists.

Human Rights Watch said that only the European Parliament had offered more specific recommendations on the matter.

There is little evidence of political will from governments to improve the climate for media freedom, the NGO added.

It noted that some journalists face prosecution on dubious criminal charges while governments routinely grant and withhold...