N1 Program Director Igor Bozic said after the presentation of the Human Rights House annual award that being recognized as a human rights defender is a great ackowledgment.
According to Bozic, the public has placed much greater trust in N1, which is visible in the numbers, but also in the messages they receive daily encouraging them to persevere. “What our journalists and cameramen experienced in the field is not normal; it is something journalists rarely face in their careers. It was constant reporting under impossible dangerous conditions in the field. The many threats our reporters receive on social media… so being recognized as a defender of human rights is a great acknowledgment,” Bozic said.
He warned that N1 continues to be under pressure. “Last week we received the regional Srdjan Aleksic award, which is important because regional journalists are noticing us. The public sees what we do. Our only protection is the conscience of the owners, who should think carefully about whether they will dare to endanger our freedom — freedom that has allowed us to be respectable not only at home, but also in the region and even in European circles. There is no media outlet in Europe that has not reported on our journalists and the problems that we might fact in the future,” he said.
Bozic spoke about the assault on an N1 crew at the Caciland regime-supporter tent camp by a man reported to be a convicted killer, adding that the police deployed at the tent camp did nothing during the assault, confirming that human rights are being systematically violated in favor of those in power as N1 has been reporting. “It’s sad when there’s no reaction to the assault,” he said.
Source: N1
