BHRT Says Account Freeze Will Keep It From Covering Campaign and October Elections

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s public broadcaster says it may be unable to cover the country’s election campaign and Oct. 4 general elections because its bank accounts remain blocked.

BHRT said the accounts were frozen on Aug. 21. It appealed to state institutions, the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, the Office of the High Representative, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union delegation, member-state embassies on the Peace Implementation Council’s steering board and other international bodies to address what it called an emergency situation.

The broadcaster attributed the crisis to unequal treatment and demanded the equal, lawful and urgent enforcement of final court decisions involving the public broadcaster of Republika Srpska, RTRS. It said 5.4 million convertible marks, or 2.78 million euros, had been reserved in RTRS accounts over a debt from television license revenue, but that an enforcement order had not yet been issued.

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It is clear that this is not only BHRT’s financial problem. The right of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina to receive timely, professional, objective, accurate and complete information about the electoral process through the public broadcaster is at risk.

BHRT also cited a final ruling under which RTRS collected 1.7 million marks, or 871,000 euros, from BHRT for the cost of collecting the television fee. BHRT said it had not received the license revenue for which those collection costs were paid.

The account freeze, BHRT said, prevents it from paying salaries, meal allowances, transport compensation and health insurance. It also affects program production and broadcasting, election coverage, technical and production capacity, field teams, correspondents, infrastructure and preparations for election-night programming. The broadcaster said the dispute threatens citizens’ right to timely, professional, objective, accurate and complete information about the electoral process, while stressing that it is trying to maintain programming despite lacking access to its own funds.

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BHRT has done and is doing everything within its power to protect the public interest and ensure continuity of programming, but a public broadcaster cannot function without access to its own funds.