Author: birnEU

The aim of the round table, co-organized by the Humanitarian Law Center and OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, ODIHR from Belgrade, was to point to the importance of trials for war crimes conducted before local courts in the entire region.

Round table participants discussed the achievements made after the transfer of jurisdiction from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY to local courts, protection of victims and witnesses at trials held before local courts in the region and ICTY’s residual mechanism.

Besides prosecutions and courts from countries in the region, representatives of organizations for protection of human rights, ODIHR and ICTY, as well as victims and witnesses addressed the round table participants.

About 50 participants from the whole region attended the round table. They had an opportunity to discuss the processing of war crimes after judges, prosecutors and representatives of human rights institutions from the Republic of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo have presented their stands.

Nerma Jelacic, Spokesperson of the Hague Tribunal, legal professionals and ODIHR representatives spoke about the transfer of knowledge and competencies of ICTY, while John Hocking, Registrar of the Hague Tribunal, discussed the residual mechanism.

The aim of the visit to the Hague is to enable journalists from Bosnia and Herzegovina to become closely acquainted with the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY.

According to the programme, the journalists attended trials for war crimes in the case of Radovan Karadzic, Zdravko Tolimir, Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin and a plea hearing in the case of Ratko Mladic.

The journalists had the opportunity to prepare reports for their media stations with support from BIRN staff members in writing those articles.

In addition, workshops were held in order to discuss the achievements of the Court over the past 15 years of its work, reporting on mass crimes, contempt of court, work with witnesses and other topics. 

The journalists held meetings with Serge Brammertz, Chief Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, John Hocking, ICTY Registrar and representatives of the Defence Council, Office for Victims and Witnesses, Detention Unit and other ICTY services.

Fifteen journalists from several media stations from Bosnia and Herzegovina participated in the visit to the Hague from July 3 to 10.

A representative of BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina was among the participants in “Study Tour on Commemorative Cultures in Germany”, which was organized by Robert Bosh Stiftung.

The study visit began in Berlin, where the participants visited the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe that was built six years ago. In addition to huge grey slabs, the Memorial contains an exhibition of big photographs of the murdered people and a room of the murdered people where visitors can hear personal stories. At the very entrance to the Museum underground area there is a sign saying: “It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say”.

During their stay in Berlin the participants visited several monuments, as well as the places reminding of the Germany’s struggle to face the past and pay respect to victims. Besides that, they had an opportunity to see how audio and video recordings of the testimonies of victims, who survived detention camps, are archived.

The NGO and media representatives from the former Yugoslavia visited the “Buchenwald” detention camp, near Weimar, where 56,000 people died.

Daniel Gaede, who guided the group and explained individual parts of the detention camp, himself is a victim. Daniel and his brother went to Palestine and Israel in order to take part in reconciliation of the two peoples. However, a Palestinian threw a bomb inside their bus. Daniel’s brother got killed, while Daniel lost one eye.

A memorial board on which names of all nations, whose members were the victims, are carved can be found in Buchenwald. Among those nations are Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats and others. The board is specific because of its warmth, as its temperature is kept at the temperature of the human body.

The participants in “Study Tour on Commemorative Cultures in Germany” also visited Munich, where they had a chance to speak to the Chief Prosecutor and court representatives, who processed crimes, as well as journalists, who reported from those court processes.

Besides that, the participants watched a movie titled “And Along Come Tourists” directed by Robert Thalheim in 2007. The movie demonstrates how a person can deal with crime consequences.

The study visit to commemorative cultures in Germany took place from June 19 to 25 this year.

 

BIRN organized the tour with support from the Governments of Norway and Switzerland and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Norwegian and Swiss Ministries of Foreign Affairs provided financial resources for 11 journalists, while the OSCE financed two more.

Representatives of the Tribunal and Prosecution, as well as all other services within that institution, presented the work of the Tribunal from all angles to the journalists, members of the Association of Court Reporters, AIS.

BIRN Director Anisa Suceska-Vekic says that, thanks to the understanding of and support from the Governments of Norway and Switzerland and OSCE, the journalists, who monitor war crimes trials held in Bosnia and Herzegovina, have gained new knowledge about the international practices in war-crimes cases.

“Through the study tour, BIRN wanted to enable court reporters from Bosnia and Herzegovina to gain a new experience and improve their skills by familiarizing themselves with the work of the international court,” Suceska-Vekic said.

During their stay at the Hague the journalists attended three lectures, covering a set of diverse topics, like work on investigations and proceedings in courtroom, issues related to proving guilt, defence of indictees and contempt of court, protection of witnesses and organization of the Detention Unit.

Serge Brammertz, Chief Prosecutor, John Hocking, Registrar, Rob Reid, Chief of Investigations with the Prosecution, David Kennedy, Chief of the Detention Unit, defence counsels and representatives of other services spoke about the mentioned topics.

One segment of the tour concerned the openness of the Tribunal towards public and accessibility of thousands of court decisions and pieces of evidence though its website. Representatives of the Outreach Programme provided the journalists with details about this subject.

Bosnian journalists had a chance to hear interesting experiences from their colleagues from SENSE and Beta news agencies, who have reported from trials held before the Tribunal for many years already.

In addition, they attended a plea hearing in the case of Ratko Mladic, former Commander of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, as well as the trials of Radovan Karadzic, former President of Republika Srpska, and other indictees, who are charged with crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The journalists prepared trial reports for their media outlets with assistance of and support from BIRN BiH. Besides that, they conducted interviews with Hague Tribunal representatives and took statements from victims, who attended indictee Mladic’s plea hearing.

The journalists from Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Zenica, Bihac, Doboj and Brcko gave high marks to the study tour and experiences gained through their visit to the Hague Tribunal, pointing out that they had a chance to exchange opinions with their colleagues and familiarize themselves with the work of the institution dealing with processing of the most-responsible war crimes perpetrators.

At the same time a study tour to the Hague was organized for journalists and editors from Serbia, who attended joint lectures with journalists and editors from Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was done with the aim of establishing as good regional cooperation as possible.

 

BIRN BiH’s Justice Programme has had support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since the early days of the project in 2005

Launched in early 2005, BIRN-BiH’s justice programme aims to bridge the gap between judicial institutions, security organisations, local government and the citizens of BiH through timely, objective and reliable reporting on past crimes and the institutions and mechanisms for dealing with them.

Having identified the launch of a local War Crimes Chamber (WCC) as an historical opportunity to tackle what we see as the main stumbling-block for all major political, social and economic issues affecting the country, we have sought to rally media and civil society to engage in and support the delivery of information about war crimes related justice.

In the first two years of the programme, we trained ‘beat reporters’ from all the main print and electronic media outlets to monitor domestic prosecution of war crimes as well as educated and motivated civil society groups around the country to get involved and support war crimes related justice.

We facilitated a dialogue and cooperation between state and court officials, civil society and the BiH media and created specialised news portal Justice Report dedicated to war crimes trials in BiH. Moreover, in 2007 the online production of Justice Report was supplemented by an audio programme Radio Justice in order to increase the audience of the project.

Most recently, in 2010, we successfully launched a TV programme TV Justice that has been also shown on some main national TV stations.

In depths analysis, news and investigations done by BIRN BIH, made a huge impact in the whole society, but influence the process it self acting critical in some moments and offering insight to the public about what is going on behind closed doors of the court room or offices of local and international officials in the country.

Learning from this experience, BIRN recently has established a broader editorial team to cover so called ‘lower’ courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but is also looking to ensure visibility for the regional war crimes justice. New team will not only cover issues related to trails, but to the whole spectrum of transitional justice.