Refik Hodzic

Refik Hodzic is a journalist, film-maker and justice activist from Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has worked for more than 25 years in the field of transitional justice, with a particular focus on the role of media and communications.

He currently works as a strategic communications consultant on Syria and Myanmar with the European Institute for Peace and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, and recently with the UNDP and Open Society Justice Initiative in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

Hodzic served as ICTJ’s director of communications from 2011-2017. Prior to that, Hodzic has worked in various capacities as an expert in strategic communications in transitional justice processes in the former Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Colombia, Tunisia and Timor-Leste. While with the ICTJ Hodzic worked on contexts as diverse as Kenya, Guatemala, Syria, Canada, Uganda and Nepal.

Hodzic served with the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia from 2000–2004 and 2006–2010 as the Tribunal’s spokesman and outreach coordinator for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He also headed the public information and outreach section of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he developed a comprehensive public information and outreach strategy for the court and the state prosecutor’s office.

In 2004, Hodzic co-founded XY Films, an independent film and television production company producing documentary films dealing with the legacy of war crimes committed during the 1990s. With XY Films he authored award-winning documentaries and television series. Hodzic has published extensively in international media and academic publications on victims’ rights and the relationship between media and transitional justice. He is one of the founders of “White Armband Day,” a globally-recognized grassroots campaign for the rights of victims’ families in Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Areas of expertise: strategic communications, transitional justice, media, journalism, displacement.