At this “Brunch with Journalists” session we disscused about media reporting on juvenile delinquency, i.e. the most frequent mistakes when reporting about this sensitive social category. This session was organized on 28 January 2010, in Banja Luka, with Dragan Uletilovic, the judge of the Basic Court in Banja Luka, and expert within the Coordination Body for Implementation of BiH Juvenile Delinquency Strategy, as the introductory speaker.

At the beginning of the session, Uletilovic presented all relevant documents that a journalist has to follow when reporting on children and minors. Besides BiH Press Code and UN Convention on Children Rights, he also made comments about the Criminal Codes of RS and BiH, which also regulate the criminal liability of journalists and editors in cases of violations of the articles of this Law that are treating the secrecy of the procedure. The most frequent violations of the Criminal Code are: exposing the identity of a minor, directly or indirectly stating the name and last name, exposing the address, school, family, or other data based on which the person in question could be recognized.

Uletilovic also stated that the number of felonies executed by minors is increasing. He added that there is also increase in felonies that contain elements of violence, using explosion devices, and using drugs. The number of “recidivists”, i.e. minors that repeat criminal offences after the sentenced served is also on the rise.

hCa Banja Luka welcomes the judgment delivered by the European Court of Human Rights by which it is condemning BiH of discrimination towards its Jewish and Roma national minorities in the election process for the members of BiH Presidency and House of Peoples of BiH Parliament.

For the last several years, hCa has been actively working on strengthening capacities and promotion of national minorities in BiH, and it pointed to the fact that the constitutional provision “others”, which includes national minorities in BiH, prevents members of national minorities to candidate their representatives for positions in BiH Presidency, which has been reserved exclusively for constituent peoples. In addition, the determinative term “others” is humiliating and degrades national minorities’ members to second-rate citizens in relation to constituent peoples.

Although the European Court’s judgment was passed in relation to the attitude of the authorities towards Roma and Jewish national minorities in BiH, this decision automatically applies to all the other members of national minorities that have been discriminated in this regard. The European Court’s decision should help to all national minorities, as well as to all other citizens of BiH that do not declare themselves as members of constituent peoples, to be able to apply both for BiH Presidency and House of Peoples.

The applicants of the suit were Mr. Jakob Finci who is the President of the Jewish community and Mr. Dervo Sejdic who is the member of Roma Council in the country.

V. D.

The final activity of the project “Links for Change” for 2009 was thematic meeting with institutions that we organized on 08 December in cooperation with the BH Journalists’ Association at Hotel Bosnia in Sarajevo on the topic “Gender Sensitive Language in Media”. We have opt for this topic being fully aware of the importance of the role that the media have in razing the public awareness in relation to the implementation of Gender Equality Law in BiH, especially through the promotion and usage of gender sensitive language.

The participants of the meeting held at Hotel Bosnia in Sarajevo were representatives of various media houses – members of the “BH Journalists” Association, NGOs and students of journalism at the Faculty of Political Science in Sarajevo.

After the introductory presentation made by Dr Svenka Savic, professor of psycholinguistic at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, which included recommendations for using gender sensitive language in media, the participants gave their comments to the presentation, as well as their personal experiences and opinions in relation to the usage of gender sensitive language in media.

At the end of this meeting, the participants agreed that the BiH reality is still very patriarchal, which is as such reflected in the media. It is therefore crucial to change it and to introduce gender sensitive language in media by educating editors and journalists on this topic.

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S. N.