Bosnia-Herzegovina

[BA] Coverage of Violence in the Broadcast Media

IRIS 2000-2:1/4

Dusan Babic

Media Analyst, Sarajevo

The Independent Media Commission (IMC), which is the sole licensing and broadcast regulatory authority in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on 13 December 1999 issued the decision to fine the Banjaluka-based Nezavisna Radio i Televizija (NRTV) for coverage of violence. The violation concerned scenes of slaughter from the Chechnya war, among which was a close-up sequence showing the death of an unknown person. The IMC Enforcement Panel found that the broadcast of these scenes by NRTV was in breach of the IMC General Terms and Conditions of License and of the IMC Broadcasting Code of Practice, Article 1.2 "Decency and Civility".

This decision has been criticized by the Vienna-based International Press Centre, which questioned the implied holding that the coverage of events in Chechnya, no matter how indecent, could incite a violent or unlawful act in B-H.

Nevertheless, the IMC sees the respective provisions contained in the Code of Conduct as being in line with the Council of Europe Recommendation No. R (97) 19 on the portrayal of violence in electronic media.