Vienna, 24/08/2017
The South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) expressed concern after it was revealed that in the early morning hours of 23 August, two journalists were attacked while doing their job in the town of Slavonski Brod in eastern Croatia.
Visnja Ruzojcic (Višnja Ružojčić) from the public broadcaster HRT and Aleksandra Primorac from the web portal SBplus were reporting from the scene of an attack that happened on 22 August, where a man was shot for currently unknown reasons and by an unknown perpetrator. The man later died due to the injury.
As the two journalists were reporting from the scene of the crime a day after on 23 August, an individual approached them, began using curse words and tried to violently take the camera out of the hands of Ruzojcic and threatened to smash it. The journalist however held tightly to the camera, so the attacker only partially damaged the microphone.
SEEMO expressed deep condemnation for the incident and called on authorities in Croatia to make their investigation of this case as transparent and swift as possible. It is essential to penalize the attacker who took it upon himself to attempt to physically harm two women who were trying to do their job.
SEEMO is a network of editors, media executives and leading journalists in South, East and Central Europe and its press freedom work is supported by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) project, as part of a grant by the European Commission.