News and Events

As a part of the ‘Monitoring Policies of the Government of Serbia’ project, a conference on systematic approaches to fighting corruption was organised by BIRN Serbia in cooperation with Transparency Serbia on March 20.

A group of students from the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic visited the offices of BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina to learn about war crimes prosecutions in the country.

The first training session for journalists and editors organised by BIRN Serbia as part of the project ‘Europe, It’s You’ was held in Leskovac in southern Serbia from March 15-17. The training sessions are part of The European Partnership with Municipalities – EU PROGRES across south and southwest Serbia.

The award-winning German journalist Florian Hassel will be representing Suddeutsche Zeitung on the selection committee of the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence this year. The respected German newspaper has been the Fellowship’s media partner since the establishment of the programme in 2007. Hassel will replace his colleague Christiane Schloetzer, who was a member of the jury for six years until she took up a new post in Turkey in late 2012.

BIRN Kosovo’s legal adviser Flutura Kusari spoke at an expert roundtable on the subject of citizens’ rights and accountability in the Kosovo justice system that was organised by Advocacy Training and Resource Centre in cooperation with Centre for Legal Aid and Regional Development as well as law firm Sejdiu and Qerkini.

BIRN Serbia organised a panel discussion in Belgrade on March 13 about introducing a better system of protection of patients’ rights as a part of its ‘Monitoring Policies of the Government of Serbia’ project in the fields of the economy, health, education and the fight against corruption. 

Paul Lewis, special projects editor at the British daily newspaper The Guardian, has joined the annual jury for the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence.

This year’s competition for the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence programme closed on March 5.

Public discussion about education in Serbia is currently limited and the impact of educational policies is not matching up to expectations, it was concluded at a debate dealing with education policy organised by BIRN Serbia on February 27.

Anisa Suceska-Vekic, director of BIRN in Bosnia and Herzegovina, gave an interview to weekly magazine Dani, which was published on February 22. In the interview, Suceska-Vekic speaks about BIRN BiH and its work, as well as her family, as she is the mother of three small children.

BIRN’s regional director Gordana Igric spoke in Berlin on February 25 on a panel about reporting in south-east Europe and the pressures on journalists that exist in all the countries in the region.

The United Nations Development Programme in Kosovo published a new report called ‘Perceptions on Transitional Justice’ on Tuesday, outlining the current problems that Kosovo is facing over reconciliation, missing persons, reparations and other key post-conflict issues including media coverage of war crimes topics.

Speakers at a conference in Bucharest have attacked temporary restrictions that prevent Romanian and Bulgarian citizens from working freely in several EU countries.

The Balkan Transitional Justice team held a meeting in Belgrade on February 7 to present the project’s first year activities and results to donors.

A conference in Bucharest this February will discuss the impact of working restrictions on Romanian citizens in the EU, following an investigation by Sorana Stanescu that won the top prize in the 2012 Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence.