Press release on the occasion of the filed criminal charges against the portals Istinomjer.ba, Raskrinkavanje.ba and Faktograf.hr
Criminal charges were filed to the Federal Prosecutor's Office of FBiH by lawyer Mirnes Ajanović, president of the BOSS-Bosnian Party, against the owner, editor, alleged researchers and the so-called “Fact-checkers” of the portals Istinomjer.ba and Raskrinkavanje.ba, which have been depriving legal and natural persons and the media of their constitutional right to freedom of expression through social platforms for months.
The reported persons marked the content that would problematize the safety and efficacy of vaccines against Covid-19 or the facts about possible complications in the use of these vaccines, including the legality of vaccine import – as false or untrue news with the threat of blocking profiles on social networks, ignoring official vaccine instructions against Covid-19 available at the Agency for medicinal products and medical devices of BiH, which the they had to know about.
By blocking the right to objective information, these persons acted to create the illusion among citizens that all vaccines are safe and can be given to everyone, and that they can be given to children and pregnant women, although the instructions clearly state that pregnancy is a contraindication for some vaccines and that the manufacturers have defined the age above 16 or 18 for recieving the vaccinee. Reported so-called “Fact-checkers” did not problematize public calls for vaccination of the elderly, which belong to risk groups for vaccines due to serious chronic diseases according to the official instructions of the manufacturers of some vaccines.
Reported persons illegally gave unhindered space to radical vaccination policy and forced vaccinations, which resulted in increased profits of vaccine producers, and suffocated, banned and marked as false content that raised important issues about the safety of vaccines, facts, and even official documents that vaccine manufacturers created. The reported persons created a feeling of fear in people for blocking profiles when sharing information because the true news is marked as false, thus violating the provisions of the FBiH Criminal Code from Article 177. – Violation of equality of man and citizen, in conjunction with Article 31. – Complicity, 126. – Liability of a legal entity, 340. – Association for the purpose of committing criminal offenses and 342. – Organized crime, for which prison sentences of up to ten years are prescribed.
Considering that UG “Why Not”, according to them, cooperates with the company that has the largest social network, where reported persons influence the restriction of the content of users, authors and media, the competent prosecutor's office is obliged to check whether the applicants acted according to the company's rules, and was the company aware of the blocking of the right to objective information for their users. Along with the criminal report, the indictment requested that the indictment prohibit the activities of the legal entity UG “Why Not” in order not to commit further crimes, as well as to determine whether they acted contrary to the guidelines of their financiers and whether they knew about committing crimes. Criminal charges on similar grounds were filed against Faktograf.hr for blocking true information regarding covid certificates in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a request to use the Institute of International Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters to carry out necessary investigative actions in the Republic of Croatia or forward criminal charges to act with the competent prosecutor's office in the Republic of Croatia.
