Vienna-based South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) has written to Republika Srpska prime minister Milorad Dodik to protest against a politician from Dodik’s party insulting Serbia’s Beta news agency and one of the agency’s journalists.

SEEMO, a network of editors, media executives and leading journalists from South East Europe and an affiliate of the International Press Institute (IPI), said that it condemned the accusations made by Rajko Vasic, Secretary General of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (Savez Nezavisnih Socijaldemokrata - SNSD) against the Belgrade, Serbia-based Beta News Agency and its correspondent Ljiljana Kovacevic.

According to the organisation, on February 22 2009, in an interview with local magazine Fokus, "Vasic referred to Beta in vulgar language and implied that the news agency was accepting money from foreign sources to publish false and tendentious reports aimed at arousing public discontent".

In its letter to Dodik, SEEMO secretary general Oliver Vujovic said: "Such a manner of communication comes as a surprise to SEEMO, since Vasic was himself a journalist in Bosnia and Herzegovina before the war and, from 1998 to 2000, Minister of Information of the Republika Srpska Government".

"SEEMO urges Your Excellency, in your capacity as President of the SNSD, to ensure an immediate investigation into this incident and to make public your own view regarding Secretary General Radic's unprofessional behaviour."

"We further urge Your Excellency to do everything in your power to provide an environment in which the media are free to report on current events, thereby ensuring the people's right to information," SEEMO said.