I was sitting in the library, having a discussion with some people about how cool it is to be a journalist, and all the advantages that being in “the watchdog” and “run after the bone of information” profession can bring you. And then a serious looking girl joined our conversation…

Sabina sat down and asked us one question: “Do you want to hear how cool it is to be journalist, when you are treated like a dog?” Silence descended on the table, and because her appearance was kind of weird and her voice was sad, not one of us could say a word.
I decided to interrupt this uncomfortable moment and answered positively. So Sabina started her story.

“When I was 16, I started to write articles as a freelancer for the country’s second biggest newspaper. And that’s how everything started…”
The girl was a talented writer and won a journalism competition for “the best article”. As a result, suddenly she was a freelancer for a national newspaper. Now aged 20, she started work as a cultural journalist, before reporting on politics and economics which led to her conducting interviews with her  country’s Prime Minister and other high-powered dignitaries.
When Sabina was just 19, she had to interview the Prime Minister about a predicted economic crisis. When article was published, the next day the young journalist received a call from the Prime Minister on her cell phone.
She said: “I was shocked about two things: that he called and what he said. It was a threat – he said that I had to write an apology in the next day’s newspaper and state that I had made a mistake and misunderstood what he had said.  But I knew the explanation. After my interview was published many journalists called him and asked him to comment on something that he’d revealed in my interview – he said that he had received a threatening letter from the Vehicular Ministry. I had this phrase on my recorder, but when the chain reaction started from other journalists, he understood that he needed to provide this letter, which, it seemed, he did not have. So he chose to try and make me tell all the media in my country: “So sorry. I was stupid and misunderstood that the  Prime Minister received a threatening call. Which, of course, he could not provide.”
Sabina went to her editor and asked for help, but he refused to understand the situation and she had to write an apology.

As Sabina continued her story, the people around the table looked at her with deep respect. “I always believed in democracy and freedom of speech,” she said. “Then it turned out that the newspaper where I worked belonged to one of country’s oligarchs. The newspaper was meant to be about freedom of speech and independence. I was so disappointed and felt that if you are just 19 years old you get no respect or trust. But everything just started with this accident.”
The next problem for the girl, who had already been mistreated once, came when she was sent to investigate locations and write an article about contraband goods. While she was doing this research, one evening she was waiting for night bus after a party with her friends. Suddenly someone approached.
At this point Sabina stopped talking for some seconds; it seemed that she needed some strength to speak about what happened next. “It was a man in black with a gun in his gloved hands. I was alone on the dark street. I was still 19. He pointed his gun into my back, I felt it. He whispered ‘If you continue this research, you will not be alive anymore’. And he walked away. I could not move for almost an hour. I stayed there. I was mentally dead.”

The girl stopped talking once again. She breathed in, and then continued: “I needed one month of rehabilitation. I could not walk alone from my house and the strangest thing was - I could not tell anybody. I was alone with my fear. I was alone, because I could not trust my editor. I just ran away from journalism. I was not able to write for a year. I was not even able to think about starting to write.”
Then Sabina stood up and walked away. She did not know that I had my recorder because I was noting discussions for some university work. I tried to search for her. I tried to ask people if maybe they knew her. But she had disappeared into thin air.

This story sounds incredible but it gives an insight into what can happen when things turn bad. After this you realise that being journalist is not always as fun as many young people think it is, just because it’s a popular and intelligent profession.
It doesn’t matter if this unbelievable story was made up for some unknown reason, or if maybe the “gun thing” was imaginary. It is also unimportant which country she came from – the most important thing to realize it that it could happen to anyone, in any country. It could have been a huge scandal, but it seems that it was not. So if you live through these events as the young badly-treated journalist did, it’s possible that nobody will know.

Then a question comes into my mind: What exactly is freedom of speech, and how does it work? Is it a myth that exists only in European Union countries?