For 16 months of attacks in the north, discouraged journalists even after their reporting.

Over 16 months have passed since a series of attacks on journalists in Kosovo's northern municipalities inhabited by Serb majority, but neither they nor the organisation that represents them, the Association of Kosovo Journalists (AGK), have any official information whether the law and justice bodies have taken legal action against the authors.

From AGK say the international Day to end the failure of crimes against journalists, which is recorded on November 2nd, finds journalists in Kosovo discouraged of reporting attacks on them, due to mild or at all punishments, as well as lack of official information from rule institutions and law institutions regarding dealing with their cases.

For the number of reported attacks on journalists, Radio Free EuropeHe contacted the Kosovo Police, State Prosecutor and the Judiciary Council, but no institution received answers.

At the Kosovo Institute for Justice (IKD) criticises the judiciary for, as they say, a policy of impunity for criminal acts against journalists.

“No notification for”

On 16 June last year, Kosovo Radio Television reporter Venera Jojaj-Adil and accompanying cameraman came under the hail of stones and direct physical assault by a group of masked persons in Leposaviq.

That day, this group allegedly attacked journalists of various media who were forwarding the visit of Local Power Management Minister Elbert Krasniqi to Leposaviqi's mayor Lulzim Hetemi.

Jojaj-Adil says he made her statement that day at the Leposaviq police station.

A few weeks later, she thinks she was called back by the Kosovo Police.

I've been called in a few weeks and I've been told we'll have another appointment and we'll get additional information. But I haven't received any phone calls yet, nor an invitation to appear at any of the” police station, says Jojay-Adili for Radio Free Europe.

She adds there is no official information on whether rule authorities and the law have filed investigations or indictments against any person concerning the attack.

Journalist Fatlum Jashar faced similar situations. The car, in which he and the ATV team were located, was attacked in Zvecan on June 13th last year by, says a group of Serbs who had taken a wait with a vehicle.

As Yasar relates to Radio Free Europe, attackers tried to pull the car, which was hit with stones and metal bars.

All three ATV employees in the car suffered physical injuries, but managed to avoid the worst, with the help of members of the peacekeeping mission, KFOR, which were forwarded to South Mitrovica.

Yasar says he has issued a statement to the Kosovo Police for this case.

“ ... but, since then, except for the statements we gave and the medical examination, 'cause we've also received injuries from the stone strokes we haven't had any calls and no further notice of what happened to our case”, says Jashar.

He shows that he has tried to get information even at the prosecutor if the case has been initiated but without success.

Then, we've given up, too, because we've seen that it's not moving something towards solving the” case, says Jashar.

Numerous attacks on journalists occurred in May and June last year in northern Kosovo, where Serb residents have been opposed for days to the deployment of Albanian mayors to municipal facilities in Leposavic, Zubin Potok and Zvecan.

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Of the 74 cases of attacks, threats, pressures and others against journalists, which he recorded to AGK last year, more than half of them occurred in the country's north, says Nayle Dema-Selmani, deputy chairman of the Board of this association.

According to her, last year has been the most serious in the context of the violence exercised against journalists.

Meanwhile, from the beginning of this year until now, this association recorded 45 cases of attacks on journalists.

There are various attacks, ranging from institutional officials to different interest groups, both business, religious and other. They attack when they see that a journalist is investigating something that may not eventually prevent them from publishing”, Dema-Selman says of Radio Free Europe.

She emphasises that AGK is not satisfied with the prosecution and bring to justice by authors of attacks on journalists.

“Of course we would like to be treated with priority [from justice organs] and sentences to be higher. We have discussed it in the AGK, and according to the data we have, based on the discussion with journalists who have been the target of the attacks... their discouragement to report cases and to follow procedures later in the courts, lies largely on the fact that the sentences are lower”, Dema-Selman says.

She adds that AGK has no precise and official data on how many cases of attacks on journalists have been prosecuted by the prosecution and the court.

Security of such data poses a problem for AGK, because cases are treated as an attack on each person and are not identified as an attack on journalism.

In view of this fact, as Dema-Selman says, AGK is trying, along with the Kosovo Police, the Prosecutorial Council and the Kosovo Judiciary Council, to find a modulation for cases handled by journalists' attacks, to be identified as such in order to obtain accurate data.

IKD: Inadequate Punishment Policy by Courts

The Kosovo Institute for Justice considers that one of the most problematic issues in dealing with cases of criminal acts is penal policy.

Gezim Shala from this institute stresses that courts continue to have no adequate penal policy aimed at achieving the goal, which, according to him, is preventing the criminal act of assault on journalists.

We don't say that the sentences must always be draconian. However, to be adaptable and individualised in the sense of the specific circumstances of each case”, Shala says.

He explains that soft or severe sentences from courts depend on extenuating or demanding circumstances in which a criminal offence is carried out.

When it comes to attacks on journalists, according to Shala, the courts should not use “x1> for implementation of punitive policy.

“Secila extenuating circumstance not to be some kind of application template, but to be really weighty in condemning a person”, he says.

According to the Kosovo Penal Code, anyone who casts the other person is sanctioned in prison from six months to 5 years, depending on the way they can.

But according to Penal Code, harassment of another person is sanctioned by fines, as well as imprisonment from 3 to 5 years.

The need for journalists' “protocol

The international day to end the impunity of crimes against journalists finds Kosovo with many unresolved cases of attacks on journalists, with lynching attacks on the part of people in power, as well as with high levels of impunity and inaction of power in terms of journalists' safety, says Kostari, media lawyer.

“We in Kosovo have no policy, which protects journalists from physical or verbal threats and we have no serious attempt to address impunity, so all who threaten journalists and attack them, to be brought to justice”, Kusari points out.

According to her, in Kosovo it is likely to improve journalists' security, but in that direction it says the state must act.

This is competent because the positive aspect is that physical attacks on journalists are not by political order. Therefore, knowing that the state is not directly organising attacks on journalists, it can make a protocol for their safety. For example, police, prosecutors can deal with these cases more effectively”, says Kusari for Radio Free Europe.

In the strategic plan to improve access to justice 2022-2025, a high-priced treatment of criminal cases, where victims are sensitive persons, journalists”, respectively.

As far as it is being implemented, it is not clear, because state institutions do not respond to REL requirements for comments on the subject.

The international human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch, in last year's Human Rights Report in the world, has suggested that journalists in Kosovo have faced “attacks, harassment and threats”, to which there has been “poor reaction of state organs”.