ŽURNAL’S ANSWER TO THE OFFICE OF THE FUZIP DIRECTOR: Your letter is an insulting pamphlet and a serious pressure on our work

Respected,

We have received your letter in which you want, as you say, to "obtain" the position of our media. We would like to inform you that you have succeeded in obtaining our position, for several reasons. 

The most important reason why we react so urgently is that we are surprised by the tone of your letter, its content, insinuations, slander, accusations, and even threats that you cover up with meaningless bureaucratic phrases. Due to the question that our journalist sent to your address for the purposes of her investigative text, you accused her in the letter of:

- media persecution

- cooperation with persons investigated for corruption 

- endangering the human rights, privacy, and security of your employees 

- pressure on your work 

- instrumentalization 

- an additional type of mobbing in public space. 

In one part of the letter, you directly accuse our journalist of a kind of conspiracy, for which you will inform the competent prosecutor's office.

That wasn't enough for you either, so you attacked the complete work of Žurnal so far. In a difficult-to-read and even harder-to-understand paragraph, you challenge our credibility, all our sources, integrity, "expected level of trust", mention some "serious and wider risk" and "inappropriate pressure" ... You may be accusing us of something else, but that, unfortunately, we were unable to decipher.

You thought that was not enough, so after the letter sent to us by the "Assistant Director in the Office of the Director and Information Officer", our journalist received an e-mail from the Office of the Director of the Federal Administration for Inspection Affairs. In that e-mail, the Cabinet informs our journalist that they are "with special caution and seriousness" considering "the nature, subject, and background of her letter."

In the continuation of our position that you "obtained", we would like to inform you that the journalists of Žurnal work exclusively in the interest of the public. Our job is to professionally inform the public, using relevant sources and available documentation. We reject with disgust all your accusations, insults, and slander. You spent a lot of effort creating your loose and, sorry to point out, paranoid constructions. You could use that time to respond to the letter sent to you by our journalist. This would really enable "proactive communication", which you yourself mention in your letter. Your letter is not any "proactive communication", it is an insulting pamphlet that we experienced as a very serious pressure on our work. And we, just like your Director's Office, will carefully investigate the "nature, subject, and background" of your letter. Unlike you, we will do so without insults and threats, with relevant sources and available documentation. We will also continue to follow your work truthfully, accurately, and completely.

Sincerely,

The Editorial Board of Žurnal.

______________________

Letter from FUZIP:

NUMBER: 03-04-8-05817 / 21 

DATE: 26.11.2021. 

ŽURNAL EDITORS 

Radićeva 2 

71000, Sarajevo 

URGENT !! 

PRESS COUNCIL 

Trampina 8, 71000 Sarajevo 

SUBJECT: Review of the nature, subject matter, and background of the inquiry to the Federal Administration for Inspection Affairs, to the answer – submitted

Respected,

Regarding publications and inquiries sent by journalists of your media, and due to the fact that this Directorate continuously takes care of the maximum publicity of its activities and proactive communication, we are obliged to contact you to obtain your position and the position of your media, primarily with preventive actions, but also enabling accurate, truthful and complete informing of the public about the work of this body and to avoid publishing denials and processes of the legal protection of human rights, privacy, reputation, honor, dignity, and morals of our employees who are the subject of recent articles and inquiries of Žurnal. Namely, according to our records and statistics, inquiries from your or some other media that review issues from the segment of personal, status rights and freedoms, first of the manager and then of individual employees of this Management, have never been noticed before, until the moment of arrest and current prosecution of our three employees in June this year, on the occasion, among other things, of the criminal offense of corruption in the performance of official duties. In this context, we are obliged to point out our timely submitted information and answers to all your previous inquiries, and our commitment to in any case provide complete and true information that is of public interest.

We are obliged to inform you that, in the conditions of preventive suspension of the mentioned employees, a kind and diverse instrumental persecution of managers and all employees who perform their jobs professionally and honorably has been going on for many years. In that sense, as of today, a total of 34 letters were sent to this Management by one of the suspended employees, with the aim of abusing various legal mechanisms for reviewing the work and personal status of employees who are not incriminated. As your media already has a reputation for detecting corruption, so after receiving the last inquiry from the journalist Ms. Branka Mrkić-Radević, we express our serious concern and serious fear of possible media persecution if your media became an associate of the person under investigation for unknown reasons due to the actions of the mentioned journalist, about which we are obliged to inform the competent prosecutor's office. 

So, in the cases asked the same journalist in each of the cases. In the time frame from the moment of the arrest of one of the suspended civil servants, we have absolute homogeneity of both the subject of interest and the manuscript, with the received inquiries from the subject of access to information sent to this Directorate by one of the above-mentioned incriminated employees. Also, after the publication of the previous denial, the said incriminated employee in the case before the competent prosecutor's office addressed this Directorate with the allegations "how he carefully read the denial received by Žurnal". We are also obliged to mention that the mentioned coincidences can be ascertained by inspecting our documentation.

In accordance with all of the above, while remaining absolutely open to any kind of response to inquiries from your or any other media, we are forced to contact you to review the above circumstances, as well as the official position of Žurnal, due to serious concerns, fear of further persecution and threats to human rights, privacy and security of other employees in our suspicion that it is a matter of pressure on the work of this body by replacing the thesis in which incriminated persons instrumentalize your media through the aforementioned journalist, and put you in the service of additional mobbing in public space, specifically of the said employee. Also, if this is a trend and direction of further action, the question of the credibility of the source in this, and then in other cases, for which we attributed the expected level of trust to the media, at least when it comes to credibility and integrity of persons or sources of information, hence we are at risk of serious and wider scale where possible cooperation with persons exposed to trial for serious crimes and possibly enjoying the trust of journalists and thus becoming a relevant factor in creating public opinion, produces undue pressure on employees of this body who may appear as witnesses in criminal proceedings.

In connection with all of the above, we are obliged to address you in order to, respecting the overall work of your media and media freedom, obtain your written position and review the above circumstances, and accordingly undertake further activities to communicate with each other to inform the public and protect human rights and the rights, privacy, honor, and integrity of our employees. 

With respect! 

______________________

 E-mail from FUZIP:

Respected,

We are considering the nature, subject matter, and background of your inquiry with particular caution and seriousness. 

We are obliged to inform you that we are taking further action in terms of your inquiry and that we will provide you with answers within the next week. 

Sincerely,

_

CABINET OF DIRECTORS FEDERAL ADMINISTRATION FOR INSPECTION AFFAIRS SARAJEVO 

Fehima ef. Čurčića no. 6, 71000 Sarajevo 

Tel. 033 563 360, Fax 033 563 361 

Registration phone 033 226 644