Kristina Perić is the editor-in-chief of the Hercegovina.info portal. Previously, she worked as a journalist and editor of numerous domestic and foreign newsrooms in the region.
She is also the winner of the award given by the Society
of Journalists of Bosnia and Herzegovina "Journalist of the Year 2022"
in the category of written journalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
She also presents herself as a wife and mother of two children. In addition to managing the newsroom, she mainly deals with investigative journalism. She has already written hundreds of articles about domestic crime.
"The portal Hercegovina.info was the target of
attacks several times. Three times the car of our portal owner was damaged, the
rear window was broken once and all four tires were slashed with a knife twice.
Considering that we have written countless research
articles, where we wrote about the construction mafia and local politicians,
about highway crime, health care crime, economic crime, incentives and many
other areas, we can no longer know where the attacks are coming from. We can
only assume," she tells Politicki.ba.
When it
comes to attacks on journalists, newsrooms and media in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
she states that the employees of Hercegovina.info were also exposed to physical
attacks!
"There were calls and messages along the lines of:
"I will close your office". We received messages from a previously
high-ranking politician, as well as from a relative of a dealer from Široki
Brijeg. They sent us a message saying: "You have five minutes to delete
the news". There were also other forms of threats, such as inviting an
inspection to our premises. This is our everyday life on the portal, we don't
even count it as threats anymore.
Journalists' associations supported us. Among them is
Umbrella, of which we are one of the founders, and BH journalists, where we are
also members, OSCE, embassies, colleagues, and many individuals and
citizens," says Kristina.
When asked if they received support from official
institutions, she replied:
"I don't know what you mean when you say official
institutions, but I know that there is no support from there".
Kristina is concise and direct.
When we asked her what the reactions of the competent
institutions were to the attacks, she said that it was crystal clear:
"The response of institutions to attacks on our
portal is that there is no response.
We have reported every attack and we have not had a
reaction to any of them.
We notice and warn daily that the system is as hollow as
Swiss cheese. We held press conferences on the topic of domestic justice and I
spoke in the state Parliament last spring at a conference entitled The Right to
Justice about the failure of the judiciary in Herzegovina through examples.
