International Justice/ICTY: Sept ‘09

Facing Justice, a radio show produced by IWPR and Radio Free Europe, RFE, has been lauded for its professional approach to covering Balkan war crimes issues, in a survey of listeners.

International research organisation InterMedia carried out the independent audience research at the request of RFE, with whom IWPR produces the weekly radio programme.

This study required respondents based in Bosnia and Montenegro to evaluate several RFE programmes, including Facing Justice.

The feedback remarks praised, in particular, the impartial, professional approach of the programme.

A respondent from Bosnia said, “The programme is balanced, moderated well, and its content was well chosen, and [used] of a large number of different sources of information.”

Commenting on the Facing Justice issue he listened to, another respondent from Bosnia said that the programme “was very professional and good, especially because all angles were covered and the accused, defendants and prosecutors were all given a chance to speak”.

A respondent in Montenegro said that Facing Justice could help increase understanding of the causes and consequences of war crimes.

IWPR was also singled out for its coverage of a controversial judgement handed down by a Serbian court in the case of former high-ranking Bosnian police commander Ilija Jurisic, convicted of atrocities committed in May 1992 in the northern Bosnian town of Tuzla.

Observers said that IWPR reporter Aleksandar Roknic’s article Conviction of Ex-Bosnian Police Commander Questioned contained facts that were simply not covered in the Serbian media.

Jurisic, a former Bosnian interior ministry officer and security official in Tuzla, was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment by the Belgrade district court's war crimes chamber after being found guilty of killing at least 51 members of the Yugoslav People’s Army, JNA, and wounding at least 44, in an ambush by Bosnian police in Tuzla.

Jurisic was arrested at Belgrade's international airport in 2007 as he tried to leave for Germany. Sarajevo authorities protested the arrest, saying that Bosnian citizens should be tried in Bosnia and that holding the trial at the Serbian court had encroached on Bosnian state sovereignty.

Some human rights activists in Belgrade who monitored the Jurisic trial said that the court failed to establish his guilt beyond reasonable doubt and that the reasons for the conviction, as stated by the judge in the oral explanation of the verdict, were “not convincing”.

Andrej Nosov, president of the Belgrade-based regional foundation Heartefact, said that IWPR’s reporting on the case included details that he had not seen reported in any other Serbian media.

IWPR's articles, he said, “are objective and based on facts, they present many different views and offer complete information.

"In the local media you cannot read opinions that come from Bosnia. Journalism in Serbia is biased and that is an obstacle to any form of dialogue and debate, which is necessary. I found out that the [Belgrade-based] Humanitarian Law Fund criticised the Jurisic judgement only from IWPR's article on this case, because this has not been reported by other Serbian media,” he said.

Ema Mimica, a student at Belgrade's Faculty of Philosophy, said that in IWPR’s article on Jurisic “all sides were represented, which made it very balanced.

“Thanks to this report I learned many things I did not know before because, unfortunately, reports on war crimes trials are not sufficiently present in the mainstream Serbian media.”

Aleksandar Rasovic, member of the Liberal Democratic Party in Serbia, said that the subjects IWPR writes about are, in general, very difficult, as they are related to war crimes and "Serbia's past which I would like to forget".

“However, we cannot just sweep those issues under the carpet and it's important that the public is constantly being informed about war crimes proceedings in The Hague and in local courts.

“This is necessary so that people here can understand, accept, and face up to the crimes, regardless of who committed them. A crime is a crime, and those responsible must be prosecuted.”