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BIRN BiH Supports Wartime Sexual Violence Victims

BIRN BiH, along with several other non-governmental organization from across Bosnia and Herzegovina, has joined a network dedicated to helping victims of wartime sexual violence to testify before the courts.

Experts in the field of law and psychology from all over the country, in cooperation with the country’s witness support units, will provide free psychological and legal aid before, during, and after trials.

The network will be able to mobilise teams to meet the victim at home address or at whatever location suits them best.
“Testifying about wartime rape is difficult and hard, testifying about your own personal experience is even harder. With our efforts will be able to help and prepare witnesses who are willing to testify,” the Foundation of Local Democracy, which initiated the network, said in a statement.

The network is called Improving the Position of Women Victims of War in Bosnia and Herzegovina and is funded by Netherlands’ MATRA fund.

For more information about the network, contact +387 33 570 560 or any of its members.

BIRN Kosovo Representatives Attend an Event on Accessing Public Documents

The workshop for journalists organized by Access Info, the Network for Reporting in Eastern Europe, and the OSCE gathered several journalists working in different media outlets, as well as bloggers and other information professionals who need to access public information and documents held by Kosovo institutions in order to write a story.

BIRN Kosovo representatives, project coordinator Gresa Musliu and legal advisor Flutura Kusari were invited to this workshop to share and explain their experience on accessing public documents. The presentation was primarily focused on legal issues, explaining in detail the local legal basis and comparing it to the laws of surrounding countries.

During the conference, important laws that journalists should know were discussed.

In addition, participants had an opportunity to hear about top five investigative reports published by BIRN, which have been based on documents obtained by submitting requests to access public documents.

BIRN Kosovo regularly works on issues related to obtaining public information and is part of the Open Government Partnership working group.

BIRN BiH in Publication on Global Missing Persons Initiative

A publication of the International Commission on Missing Persons, ICMP, has quoted the director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Anisa Suceska Vekic, on global challenges in the search for missing persons.

The publication, entitled “The Missing – An Agenda for the Future”, quotes Suceska-Vekic in several places as a participant in an expert debate held in 2013 in Sarajevo, which discussed lessons learned in Bosnia and Herzegovina that can be applied across the world.

“More than 70% of missing persons have been accounted for thanks to the cooperation of the international community, domestic authorities, the prosecutor’s offices and civil society in a scenario that is unique, and the process took place within a legal framework to support families of the missing,” it quoted Suceska-Vekic as having said.

“In the last decade in the UK and USA millions of children disappear annually, and in Brazil some 40,000 children disappear annually due to drug use and trafficking. In India, 35,000 children have been found dead,” she added.

“They too were victims of human trafficking. We do not have the right not to help them because the problem is essentially the same. The role of government is the same, […] and there is the same need of the families to find their relatives, and the same need for international standards.”

The ICMP hosted a global conference last year to discuss a set of issues that will help define an agenda for the future of the missing persons issue, based on the experience of the missing persons process in the Western Balkans.

You can download the publication on this link: http://www.ic-mp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/icmp-conference-report.pdf

BIRN BiH Film Uncovers Unknown Wartime Sex Crimes

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Bosnia and Herzegovina, BIRN BiH, has initiated a three-year strategy focusing on Wartime Sexual Violence. The strategy was presented at an expert debate entitled: Crimes of War – Sexual Violence in Sarajevo.

During the past five months, BIRN BiH’s team of journalists has undertaken a drive to collect new and unheard testimonies of people who were subjected to horrific physical and psychological torture during the Bosnian war of 1992-5.

The March issue of BIRN BiH’s TV Justice magazine included a testimony of one woman raped by several soldiers every day over the course of a year while she was detained in her own house. The testimony, exclusively provided to BIRN BiH, has never been given before a judge.

“I was stunned and caught up in front of the TV screen. Fascinating, shocking, and moving at the same time. I could almost hear her cry for help. Well done!” the editor-in-chief of Radio Free Europe, Milenko Vockic, said.

In cooperation with victims associations and centers for social and mental health, BIRN BiH has continued to reach out to other “silent” victims.

“We hope that the stories we record for the web and our upcoming documentary film will encourage new indictments, as many of the perpetrators remain at large,” Anisa Suceska Vekic, BIRN BiH’s director and programme manager, said.

The film, expected in August 2014, will be entirely dedicated to the stigmatizing issue of sexually abused women and men during the war, both those living in and outside the country.

Through analysis, it will address some of the main issues preventing victims of sexual abuse from coming forward and testifying. It will also reflect on the available prosecution mechanisms and victim support programs, and reconstruct the process of testifying before the court.

“At the time, I was a victim of war, now I am a victim of the government that refuses to try rapists,” a protected witness says in an interview. “It is important to speak and to testify about what happened, not just because of me and what I have been through, but for the women that were killed,” she adds.

Fewer than 60 such cases have been brought to court since 2005, which is what originally inspired BIRN BiH to give more emphasis to this important issue.

BIRN BiH Presents Justice Series Programme

BIRN BiH presented its umbrella programme ‘Justice Series: Media, Civil Society and War Crime Trials’ to over 500 delegates from all over Europe at the 25th Annual European Foundation Centre (EFC) Assembly that took place in Sarajevo from May 15 to 17.

“Being in Bosnia and Herzegovina offered a unique opportunity to take a critical look at achievements and future challenges in a region of Europe that features the highest grade of activities by foreign donors,” said a press statement from the EFC.

BIRN BiH took part in a session on the transitional justice, reconciliation and conflict resolution entitled ‘Dealing With the Past for the Sake of the Future’ which involved video screenings and presentations.

BIRN BiH’s Justice Series was also featured in Mirovne novine, a publication issued by the co-organiser of the event, the Network for Peacebuilding in BiH.

Other local organisations that took part in the event were Caritas BK BiH, Catholic Relief Services, Helsinki Committee Bijeljina, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, Nensen Dialogue Center Sarajevo, Vive žene, Network Against Torture, United Nations Development Programme, TJAR and TRIAL.

Prestigious National Awards for BFJE Alumni

Two alumni from the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence have won awards this month for their work in 2013.

The Croatian Journalists’ Association, HND, named Barbara Matejcic as the recipient of its annual Marija Juric Zagorka award for written journalism. Barbara won the award for a series of articles about Vukovar, where a deep ethnic divide still exists between Croat and Serb populations as a result of the conflict of the 1990s.

“It is no coincidence that Barbara Matejčić was not proposed for this award by her colleagues or editors, but by a group of people from Vukovar. That’s because her stories influence ordinary people. Therefore this award is more than deserved — for whom, after all, should journalists actually work if not ordinary people?” the prize jury said in its citation.

A few days later, on May 8, Dino Jahic received the web journalism award from the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, NUNS. The story, “Bought International Awards to Show Off on Home Turf,” revealed that prominent individuals from Bosnia and Serbia had bought “awards” from the so-called Europe Business Assembly of Oxford, sometimes using public money to do so. The story was co-authored by fellow reporters from the Centre for Investigative Journalism of Serbia, Jasna Fetahovic and Dracana Peco, one of this year’s BFJE fellows.

BIRN Documentary Screened at BELDOCS Festival

BIRN’s film ‘The Majority Starts Here’, about the continuing impact of the 1990s conflicts on young people growing up in the region, was shown at the BELDOCS International Documentary Film Festival in Belgrade on Monday.

The screening was followed by a debate involving BIRN reporter Marija Ristic, who worked on the film, video editor Nemanja Babic and BIRN Regional Development Officer Petar Subotin.

The seventh annual BELDOCS festival, which runs from May 8-14, sees 34 recent documentary films from around the world screened at various locations around the city.

BIRN’s film was screened in the festival’s programme section entitled ‘Beldocs Supports’.

BIRN documentary is available to buy at www.balkaninsight.com/en/page/dvd-documentary-majority-starts-here

BIRN Journalists Win Serbian Investigative Reporting Award

The Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia and the US Embassy in Belgrade have awarded BIRN journalists Slobodan Georgiev and Aleksandar Djordjevic the 2014 prize for investigative journalism in the print media category.

Georgiev and Djordjevic won the award for their report entitled ‘Marketing Stars in the Political Field’, which was published in the weekly magazine Vreme in March 2014. The investigation showed how Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s party entered the advertising market after coming to power in 2012, pushing out the Democrats who previously held a dominant influence in this sector.

The journalists were presented with the awards, which carry a $1,200 prize, by US ambassador Michael Kirby at a ceremony on Thursday.

Kirby said that he respects the work of the Serbian prime minister and changes to the Serbian media laws, but also said that “these laws do not cover the biggest challenge for the media, and that’s lack of money. Media need money to survive, provide salaries to journalists, but also to pay other bills.”

Separate prizes were also awarded in two other categories, electronic and online media.

The electronic media (radio and television) award went to Vesna Radojevic and Andjela Milivojevic from TV Mreza and the Centre for Investigative Reporting in Serbia (CINS) for their story about a housing swindle.

The online media award was given to Dragana Peco, Dino Jahic and Jasna Fetahovic from CINS for an article about corrupt practices in the awarding of prizes to Serbian business leaders, which was published on the website of CINS and CIN Sarajevo in August 2013. Jahic is an alumnus of BIRN’s Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence.

Another BIRN Serbia journalist Ana Novakovic, was nominated in the online media category together with Georgiev, for their story ‘TV Viewers Force Fed State Spin’ about the Serbian state hiring three private companies to produce material that TV stations use for free without informing viewers that it is not news, but PR.

The winners were chosen by a jury composed of journalist and media consultant Sasa Lekovic, director of the Center for Investigative Reporting Branko Cecen, ‘Insajder’ TV show journalist Ivan Angelovski, and investigative journalist and editor of Novi Magazin Milorad Ivanovic.

BIRN Serbia Journalists Shortlisted for Investigative Award

BIRN Serbia journalists Ana Novakovic, Slobodan Georgiev and Aleksandar Djordjevic have been named as finalists for the National Investigative Journalism Award 2014 by the Independent Association of Journalists in Serbia.

Novakovic and Georgiev were selected in the online media category for their article for Balkan Insight about the Serbian state hiring three private companies to produce material that TV stations use for free without informing viewers that it is not news, but PR.

The investigation showed that the state spent at least €3.8 million over the past nine years, despite already financing two costly public media outlets. The story can be found at http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/tv-viewers-force-fed-state-spin

Georgiev was also nominated together with Djordjevic in the print media category for their investigation that showed how Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s party entered the advertising market after coming to power in 2012, pushing out the Democrats who previously held a dominant influence in this sector.

The article was published in weekly news magazine Vreme, but can also be found online at http://javno.rs/istrazivanja/oglasavanje-kao-privatni-posao-vlasti/

Others nominated in the online media category are three journalists from the Centre for Investigative Journalism in Serbia, Dragana Peco, Jasna Fetahovic and Dino Jahic, who is also a Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence alumnus.

In the print media category, the other selected journalists are Nikola Lazic from the weekly Vranjske and Jelena Veljkovic, a freelancer.

The Investigative Journalism Award is organised by the Independent Association of Journalists in Serbia and is supported by the US Embassy in Belgrade. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in Belgrade on May 8.

BIRN World War I Investigation Sparks Debate in ‘The Guardian’

An investigation into what schoolchildren in former Yugoslav countries are taught about the outbreak of World War I, and the way this teaching reflects the conflicts of the 1990s, was republished on May 6 in leading British newspaper The Guardian, sparking a wide-ranging debate among readers on the paper’s website.

The investigation by journalists from BIRN’s Balkan Transitional Justice project examined school textbooks and gathered opinions from experts and parents in five Balkan countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia. It is being published in Albanian, Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian and Macedonian as well as English on the Balkan Transitional Justice website.

The article immediately drew around 140 comments from readers of The Guardian after appearing on the newspaper’s website, which is one of the most popular and well-respected news site in the world.

The Guardian readers took part in intense debates about whether Gavrilo Princip, whose assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 helped to spark the outbreak of WWI, should be seen as a freedom fighter or a terrorist – echoing the issues raised by the textbooks in the various former Yugoslav countries which were the focus of BIRN’s investigation.

They also debated what impact the 1990s conflicts have on teaching in schools in the various former Yugoslav countries.

Some praised BIRN’s cross-border collaborative reporting methods.

“Great article, and a very interesting collaborative approach. The comparative perspective both from country to country and across time (1914-1990s-now) is fascinating and thought-provoking. Well done to the various contributors,” one reader posted in the newspaper’s comments section.

See the full BIRN investigation.