The Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS) and the BH Journalists Association have submitted a request to the World Press Photo Foundation to revoke the 1993 Spot News award given to photographer Bojan Stojanović, citing serious ethical concerns based on newly published findings regarding the circumstances in which the photographs of the execution of civilians Husein Kršo and Hajrudin Muzurović in Brčko in 1992 were taken. In a letter sent to the Foundation’s leadership on 27 April 2026, IJAS and BH Journalists also requested a formal apology to the family of Husein Kršo, the publication of a correction, and a public statement on the steps that will be taken to ensure full respect for the organisation’s Ethical Guidelines.
The appeal to the World Press Photo Foundation was prompted by the award-winning investigative article “Killing for a Photograph” by journalist Barbara Matejčić, published in May 2025 on the BIRN website and on the Novosti portal. In the article, Matejčić stresses that the photographs of the execution of Husein Kršo cannot be viewed merely as a document of a spontaneous crime, but that there is credible evidence that the photographer knew in advance that the killing would take place. In her article, Matejčić cites war photographers and war crimes investigators, and analyses the photographer’s proximity to the scene, his choice of lens and the sequence of shots taken, as well as the fact that Bojan Stojanović himself changed his account of the event he captured over the years.
IJAS and BH Journalists further note that these claims are also based on transcripts from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia obtained by Barbara Matejčić, including the testimony of Goran Jelisić, the war criminal whose actions are depicted in the awarded photograph. According to these claims, two photographers were brought in to record the killings of two Muslim prisoners for propaganda purposes in Serbia. The letter also points out that Stojanović and his colleague Srđan Petrović had access to locations and cooperation with local military structures that independent journalists could not have had in Brčko in May 1992.
Although World Press Photo changed the caption of the awarded photograph on its website in 2022, after Matejčić warned that the description was inaccurate, clarifying that the victim was not a Muslim sniper who had fired at Serbs, but a civilian, IJAS and BH Journalists believe this is not sufficient and that the key ethical issues arising from the findings have never been addressed. For that reason, the journalists’ associations from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are calling for the award to be revoked, for the findings of the investigation to be publicly acknowledged, and for the photograph to be clearly contextualised in the Foundation’s archives and on its official channels.
The position of Husein Kršo’s family gives particular weight to this request. The letter states that his son Mustafa said that, as long as the photograph remains awarded and displayed on the World Press Photo website, his father “is being killed again and again”. The family is therefore not only asking for the photograph to be removed, but also for the award to be revoked and for a clear explanation of how such recognition was granted in the first place.
The request was submitted ahead of this year’s presentation of the prestigious award.
Barbara Matejčić, the author of the article and the recipient of the 2025 “Srđan Aleksić” Award, wrote on her Facebook profile that on this day, 7 May 1992, civilians Husein Kršo and Hajrudin Muzurović were killed in Brčko after being detained with other civilians in a police station under the control of the Army of Republika Srpska. They were taken out and killed in the passageway of the Crafts Centre, in the very centre of Brčko, at a place that is today busy and ordinary, with almost no marker to recall what happened there.
Matejčić also wrote that she had been contacted by Mustafa Kršo, the son of the murdered Husein Kršo, who was less than six years old when his father was killed. According to him, he, his brother and their mother learned about his father’s death through the photographs broadcast on television. On the anniversary of the crime, the family and citizens gathered at the site of the killing for the installation of a memorial plaque, organised by the Association for Social Research and Communications (UDIK) and the Centre for Nonviolent Action from Sarajevo, as local authorities have for years refused to mark the place of suffering.
In her post, Matejčić also shared a letter written by Mustafa’s eight-year-old daughter Džejla to her grandfather Huso, whom she never met. In the letter, she writes about school, dancing, prayers and her wish for her grandfather to be there, “to hold her hand and make dad happy”. This personal, family voice is an additional reminder that behind the photograph that has for decades been treated as a document of wartime horror lies not only a question of professional and ethical responsibility, but also the life of a family that, even after more than three decades, has not received the full truth or a dignified acknowledgement of what happened.
IJAS and BH Journalists asked World Press Photo to respond by 12 May 2026 and to confirm receipt of their request.
