TIRANA, June 8 – The Albanian Union of Journalists expressed its full support to Jeta Xharra, a Kosovar journalist of the ‘Life in Kosovo’ TV programme who had been threatened recently.
Xhara heads the BIRN (Balkan Investigative Report Network) Kosovo team which produces the show.
The Union called on their colleagues in Kosovo to embrace the freedom of the media as a key component of a healthy democracy.
“We have been notified of the open attacks and pressure being put on people of our profession and towards our colleague Jeta Xharra,” said a statement.
“Such pressure and accusations step on her dignity as a human being and as a professional threat on journalism ethics. Ethics among journalists is an elementary norm for any media that wants to be professional.”
Xharra hosts a programme which dares to address controversial and even taboo topics in post-war Kosovo.
But in the last week a campaign waged by pro-government press targeting the programme has led to front-page headlines also stating that Xharra was a Serb agent and called for the programme to be taken off the air.
Threatening emails followed, including death threats, and the newspaper itself published openly abusive and threatening letters from readers.
Non-governmental organizations have raised concerns about freedom of speech in Kosovo in an open letter in response to a campaign against Jeta Xharra.
“The increasingly common practice of Infopress asserting that particular individuals are ‘Serb spies’ is becoming a disturbing issue.”
The international community’s top envoy in Kosovo, Pieter Feith, and the EU’s External Relations Committee office in Prishtina, RELEX Kosovo, have defended the show and press freedom in recent days.
