Letter to the Editorial, Slobodna Bosna

I am writing to you following the disgraceful and unfounded attack on the integrity of a senior Russian diplomat working on secondment in the OHR (“Slobodna Bosna” br. 353, 21 August 2003).  The OHR categorically rejects these allegations as unsubstantiated and untrue. 

The article fails to meet even the most basic standards of journalism.  There are no named sources, as should be the case for libelous allegations of this nature.  Nor does it contain our response to these allegations.   No serious editor in Western Europe or the United States would have accepted it. 

This is not investigative journalism.  It resembles more the smear campaigns familiar to us from the days of Milosevic and Mira Markovic’s Dnevnik.  

Far from setting the standards that others should aspire to, Slobodna Bosna is sadly becoming an example of just what should be avoided.