April 29, 2024

29.04.2024 – Kosovo Journalist Threatened by Sport Club Representative

The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) expresses concerns over threats made against Lorik Gashi, sports journalist and editor at Kanal10 (https://www.youtube.com/c/kanal10live). Gashi presented communications from a representative of a sport club in Kosovo, who allegedly repeatedly insulted and threatened him on social media.

Messages to Gashi contained offensive language and multiple threats. Gashi and his family were belittled. The author of the messages is insisting that Gashi deletes what he deemed to be a false post or face unspecified consequences.

The sport club is claiming that Gashi’s reporting was inaccurate and biased.

The case has also drawn attention from the Association of Journalists of Kosovo (Asociacioni i Gazetarëve të Kosovës – AGK – https://agk-ks.org/), which condemned the representative of the sport club and urged the association where this sport club is a member, as also Kosovo Police to investigate the matter further. You can see here the link to AGK post containing screenshots of threats: https://agk-ks.org/en/news/agk-ja-denon-fyerjet-dhe-kercenimet-ndaj-gazetarit-te-sportit-lorik-gashi/#

The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) condemns the reprehensible actions by the sport club representative directed towards journalist Lorik Gashi. Such behavior not only undermines press freedom but also poses a grave threat to the safety and well-being of journalists. If there are mistakes in the journalists’ statements, there is a possibility to ask for correction, or if the media does not like to publish any correction to ask for legal protection over court, but pressures are not acceptable

SEEMO urge authorities in Kosovo to take swift and decisive action to address this matter and ensure the protection of journalists against any form of intimidation or harassment.

South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) is a regional non-governmental, non profit network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in Southeast, South, East and Central Europe. SEEMO members are in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova (with the territory of Transdnestria), Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Türkiye / Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Austria, Italy, Vatican and San Marino have a special status in SEEMO. SEEMO has over 3000 individual members, and additional media as corporate members.

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