Prishtina’s Basic Prosecution Office announced, on Thursday, that they had arrested a suspect for assaulting Lajmi.net journalists and crew members. 

“The State Prosecutor has issued a decision regarding the detention of M.B., a suspect in the ‘Assault’ and ‘Mild Physical Injury’ criminal offences, according to the Criminal Procedure Code. She has been placed in custody for 48 hours, while another suspected person involved in this case has also been interviewed,” stated the Prosecutor’s announcement.

The team of journalists from Lajmi.net, Fjolla Hyseni and Lindita Berisha, were attacked on Wednesday by a couple in the capital city as they were trying to film a quarrel.

In the video footage released by the media, a woman and a man can be observed physically assaulting and verbally abusing the journalists, attempting to prevent them from filming. Notably, one of the journalists was pregnant, and, despite being made aware of this fact, the female attacker continued her assault.

According to Lajmi.net, the incident began when the taxi carrying the journalists blocked the couple’s path, leading to an initial physical confrontation with the taxi driver.

The journalists in the taxi attempted to record the incident, and when the attackers realised they were being filmed, they became even more aggressive.

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo, AJK,  condemned this act  describing  it as “highly troubling, unacceptable, and a significant threat to journalist safety”.

The SafeJournalists Network also responded to this attack and, together with its member AJK, demanded urgent action by the relevant institutions against the identified perpetrators in the footage. The Network urged handling cases of attacks on journalists with utmost seriousness and priority to establish a precedent for the future.

In February 2024, A Kallxo.com crew of journalist Adelina Ahmeti and cameraman Jetmir Hoxha was attacked by a resident of a village in the centre of Kosovo’s municipality of Skenderaj/Srbica.

Attacks against journalists in Kosovo, particularly in the north of the country, increased during the period of acute political tension between Prishtina and Belgrade which began in  2021. These tensions culminated in May 2023 with the attack on KFOR, NATO’s peacekeeping mission, troop’s;  journalists were also attacked and their vehicles damaged as well.

Reporters without borders’ , RSF,  2023 report ranks Kosovo 56 out of 180 countries on a composite score capturing press freedom, where, among other factors, Kosovo’s score is impacted by the fact that  although the attacks on journalists are investigated by the police and prosecutor’s office, they rarely lead to legal proceedings.