Sakharov Network

The daily newspaper Oslobodjenje, founded in 1943, was the winner of the Sakharov Prize in 1993.

Despite deaths and injuries among their colleagues and the destruction of the newspaper’s offices by Serbian artillery, some 70 journalists – Muslims, Serbs and Croats – continued to work in a nuclear shelter in the cellar of their building in Sarajevo, risking their lives so that Oslobodjenje could continue to appear.

Zlatko Disdarevic, one of the editors at the time, and later an ambassador for Bosnia, said that Oslobodjenje’s aim was to preserve and defend Bosnia-Herzegovina as a multi-ethnic state.

“Our efforts were directed against death and against the partition or even complete eradication of Bosnia-Herzegovina from the map. The people of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina will continue to fight against the partition which has its roots in the Europe that existed before the Great War”

Oslobodenje (“Liberation”), which takes its name from the newspaper founded by partisans fighting the German occupation of Yugoslavia, celebrated its 60^th anniversary in 2003.