Disturbing messages, a burned car, a mutilated Barbie doll - investigative journalist Nataša Miljanović Zubac from Bosnia and Herzegovina was repeatedly targeted for her reporting on organized crime, and the authorities did not provide her with protection.
The 49-year-old journalist is taking precautions because she has been receiving death threats for her work for a year and a half. However, she did not receive police protection; instead, police told her to "learn self-defense techniques."
"'Dead mouths don't speak' was the last message I found outside the former house where I lived until the end of October last year," she said. Miljanović Zubac for BIRN.
"The owner of the house broke the lease because, even in Canada where she lives, she felt fear about what was happening to me," she added.
The termination of the lease agreement was only "the last drop in the flood of events", writes BIRN. In addition to the threatening message, her car, which she had bought only a few days before, was set on fire in front of the same house. She also found a blonde Barbie doll, with a severed head splattered red to represent blood, on her doorstep. Twice she saw a red laser beam - like the kind used by professional snipers for target practice - aimed at her and her house.
"When I reported that light, everyone thought I was crazy and seeing some red dots," she said.
Nataša Miljanović Zubac is an investigative journalist from Trebinje, a city in the south of Bosnia and Herzegovina, near the border with Montenegro and Croatia. She spent most of her 27-year career working for the public broadcaster Radio Television of Republika Srpska (RTRS).
Her work included reporting and filming investigative reports from the southernmost city of the Republika Srpska entity, focusing on organized crime and cross-border crime. She believes the threats are an attempt to silence her.
"I can't say that I was ready to see a blonde Barbie with a severed head, which obviously looks like me, but after my car was set on fire in front of the house where I lived with my son, I think that anything is possible and I am ready for anything," she said is her, as reported by BIRN.
"And the message with that doll is clear, someone is trying to silence me."
Protection promised, then denied
When Miljanović Zubac started receiving threats in the summer of 2022, she was not working on any story specifically at that moment. However, according to BIRN, he has extensive experience in reporting on "organized crime linked to state structures, in particular people linked to criminals who used encrypted messaging applications Sky ECC and Anom".
After receiving the first threats, Miljanović Zubac informed the administration of RTRS, which is located in Banja Luka, the administrative center of Republika Srpska, in order to receive instructions on how to continue working, "because no one had to work in such conditions before."
She also reported what was happening to the police in Trebinje. The first police security assessment in July 2022 said her security was at risk and she would receive protection. Documentation reviewed by BIRN reportedly confirms her claims.
"Then in August 2022, someone from the administration of RTRS, that is, the company I work for, contacted Siniša Kostrešević, director of the police of Republika Srpska, and my security assessment was changed," said Miljanović Zubac. The amended assessment said she was not in danger, so the protection she was originally promised had not arrived.
In October 2022, Bosnia and Herzegovina had parliamentary elections, which Miljanović Zubac partly blamed for the change in her security assessment, as having journalists under police protection could suggest that Republika Srpska has a problem with organized crime.
She argued that "at that moment it was not the best situation [for the government's image] to have a journalist from a public broadcaster whose safety was at risk."
"They changed my assessment, put a target on my forehead, and soon after that I said that from now on I will directly hold Sinisa Kostrešević responsible for my safety," she added.
Other journalists in the country were also targeted because of their work. In its 2023 report on Bosnia and Herzegovina's progress towards EU accession, the European Commission expressed "serious concerns about political pressure, intimidation and threats against journalists, exacerbated by a polarized political environment and nationalist rhetoric."
The report also noted instances where "senior politicians have publicly attacked journalists, especially women, with little institutional follow-up or official acknowledgment of the problem."
In 2022, 73 cases of violations of journalists' rights were recorded in the country, including 31 attacks and threats, which represents an increase of 40 percent compared to 2021, BIRN points out.
Miljanović Zubac also wrote to the Agency for Investigations and Protection, SIPA, and the Directorate for the Coordination of Police Bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina (DKPT), which replied that they had no jurisdiction in this case.
"I also wrote to Nenad Nešić, the state security minister, who did not say he had no jurisdiction, but said he would 'tell [Republika Srpska Interior Minister Sinisa] Karan and [Police Director] Kostrešević' about my case," she added. Miljanović Zubac.
Nešić did not respond to BIRN's question about his promise by the time of publication.
SIPA and the Republika Srpska police also did not respond to BIRN's requests for comment on the failure to provide protection to Miljanović Zubac.
In January 2023, after again inquiring about her security status through her lawyer, Miljanović Zubac received an email from Republika Srpska police spokeswoman Mirna Miljanović, in which she said that the police were already "surveilling" the address where she lives, and as an additional security measure, Miljanović Zubac "needs to learn self-defense techniques" and better cooperate with the local police.
Miljanović Zubac has been on sick leave since September 2022, receiving only 70 percent of his salary. To provide an extra layer of protection for herself and her family, Miljanović Zubac publishes materials about organized crime on her social networks, usually messages decoded from the Sky ECC and Ana applications.
"I have nowhere else to go, so I use my social networks, and post content related to organized crime and state structures," she said.
"And I want you to write this: I don't trust anyone, any police or judicial structure in this country, because they have shown me that they are not doing their job," she added.
An insult by a war criminal
Attacks on Miljanović Zubac began after the convicted war criminal Vojislav Šešelj, president of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party, spoke about her in an offensive manner on the Serbian television Pink TV, connected to the regime of Aleksandar Vučić, writes BIRN.
Seselj made various insinuations about the suicide of his late husband Miljanovic Zubac, who was a border policeman.
"I know who ordered him to insult me and my family and how, using my late husband's suicide as a means," she said. Now he is suing Seselj for defamation before the Belgrade court.
What was even more shocking to her was the lack of reaction from other journalists, both in Trebinje and elsewhere in the country.
"The Association of BH Journalists provided their lawyer for me, but they also backed off a bit," she said. "When it comes to others, there are many journalists whom I respect, but I cannot call them my colleagues. Nikolija Bjelica from the Direkt portal is the only one who dared to ask difficult questions about my case," she added.
Miljanović Zubac said that she refuses to give up journalism. Although she is on sick leave as a single mother on limited income to finance her son's university education, she vowed to continue her work despite the difficult situation, which she described as "another attempt to silence an independent journalist".
"I am Nataša Miljanović Zubac, mother and grandmother; woman; journalist. I was offered asylum, but I don't want to flee [from Bosnia and Herzegovina]," she said.
"Only mice run away and hide in the ground. No criminal or head of any security agency can scare me, no matter how powerful they are. The journalistic honor that pulses in our hearts is much stronger than their crime."
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