Category: News and Events

BIRN Kosovo Organizes a Discussion between Law Students and the Head of EULEX

On May 25th, law students in Kosovo enjoyed an interactive discussion with Alexandra Papadopoulou, the Head of European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo, at a forum organized by BIRN Kosovo in collaboration with the University of Prishtina’s Faculty of Law. 

Alexandra Papadopoulou delivered her opening remarks to a welcoming audience, which included future lawyers, prosecutors, and judges. During the discussion, which was moderated by BIRN Kosovo Executive Director Jeta Xhara, Papadopoulou presented her remarks on the current state affairs, including the upcoming parliamentary elections in Kosovo.

Shortly after providing the audience with a brief introduction on EULEX’s mission in Kosovo, Papadopoulou applauded the students and noted that she was delighted to have been invited to chat with such a promising bunch of young people. Students raised questions of various natures, and specifically were interested to know more about EULEX’s current mandate and its role in strengthening the rule of law in Kosovo.

Considering that Kosovo’s general parliamentary elections are rapidly approaching, Papadopoulou urged students to exercise their civic right to vote; since Kosovo’s young voters account for a large portion of the voting population, the youth vote is seen as a driving force for affecting political change.

A functional democratic society, she noted, is attained through citizens’ active participation, including that of the younger generations. It is the citizens’ responsibility to hold their leaders accountable, she declared, and all citizens should not neglect the importance of voting and its power to initiate change.

 

Kosovo Albanian and Serb Civil Society and Media Agree to Further Cooperation

On May 23rd, in Prishtina, a third roundtable was held with the title “Perception of NGOs and Media in their role and engagement in the Brussels’ dialogue,” organized by the NGO New Social Initiative (NSI) from Mitrovica and BIRN Kosovo as part of the project “Increasing capacities and credibility in Albanian and Serbian NGOs and media in Kosovo”.  The purpose of this UNMIK-funded project is to establish cooperation between Kosovo Albanian and Kosovo Serb civil society and media organizations.

The moderator of the roundtable was Lazar Rakic from the Alternative Dispute Resolution Center. He asked the media and civil society representatives whether they have a system of exchanging experiences and information sharing in regards to the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue process.

“I think that there has been enough space for the civil society to be engaged indirectly in the dialogue. Part of the blame is with the government; they haven’t always been forthcoming with discussions, and there was something they were not telling us,” Shpetim Gashi from the Center for Inclusive Governance said.

Sonja Sovrlic from RTV Mir in Mitrovica said that this is a painful topic for Belgrade, and that Pristina has not included many people in the process. She added that some of the agreements reached have been lacking in clarity, with clear divisions in how Albanian and Serb media report on the issues. Some agreements have still not been implemented, she said.

Lura Limani from Prishtina Insight emphasized that only after media lobbying, and in particular the lobbying efforts of BIRN, did the Brussels-negotiated agreements become publically accessible. She also emphasized that the negotiation process lacks the involvement of Kosovo Serbs because Belgrade speaks on their behalf; meanwhile, she said, Kosovo Albanians also do not feel that they are part of the process.

Shkelqim Hysenaj from the Association of Journalists in Kosovo argued that the dialogue process has been plagued by several failings, including negotiators not responding to phone calls from journalists. Additionally, there have been issues with transparency, and both teams have not had strategies for communicating with the public and the media, or how to discuss the agreements with other ethnic groups. He said that the Kosovo representatives have not answered why there is no person of reference to communicate directly with journalists.

Milica Andric from NGO Aktiv in Mitrovica said that it is problematic when negotiators are not well informed about the situations of people in reality. According to her, implementation is the most crucial aspect of the dialogue process.

“There are so many small practical problems which can be easily solved, but are important because without them, you cannot get into the fruitful aspects of the agreements. For instance, if you don’t have access to IDs, or drivers’ licenses, you cannot get into verification of diplomas, or the agreement on license plates.”

The roundtable also included representatives from Epoka e re, Tribuna, BIRN, and Kosovo’s public broadcaster, RTK. Participants were eager to continue such discussions on the dialogue between Kosovo Serb and Kosovo Albanian civil society and media organizations.  Prior to this roundtable, two other roundtables were held in North Mitrovica and in Leposavic, where similar concerns and issues were raised.

BIRN Macedonia Shortlisted for Data Award

BIRN Macedonia’s database, Foreign Investments Uncovered, has been shortlisted among five others nominated for the Data Journalism Award 2017 in the small newsrooms category.

Of 573 projects from around the world, 69 were selected in 11 categories.

The competition is organized by Global Editors Network, with support from the Google News Lab, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and in partnership with Chartbeat.

Simon Rogers, Data Editor at Google News Lab, is the director of the DJA competition, which takes place under the presidency of Paul Steiger, chairman of ProPublica’s board of directors.

This year, the prizes will be awarded at a special ceremony at the Hofburg palace in Vienna during the seventh annual GEN Summit on 22 June 2017.

Previous winning organisations include BuzzFeed, Quartz, The New York Times, The Guardian, ProPublica, La Nación as well as smaller organisations such as Ojo Publico, Civio Foundation and Convoca.

The database Foreign investments Uncovered investigates the results of the Macedonian government’s policy of attracting foreign investment.

It shows that the amount of the investments than seven times lower than the goverbnment announced, and that the number of people who gained employment through these investments was three times less than they predicted.

Justice Sector in Bosnia Needs Urgent Reform

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Bosnia and Herzegovina, BIRN BiH, organized its third and final presentation of its analysis, “Bosnia’s Justice Sector Reform: Optimism and Delay’,” on May 23, 2017 in the American Corner in Mostar.

The key issues for lawyers and representatives of veterans’ organizations were seen as transparency and the efficiency of the state and local courts.

Talking about the quality of indictments and about the cases now in front of Bosnia’s state court, Zvonko Vidovic from the Office of the Legal Aid for Defenders, said the quality must be improved.

“What will be the legacy of the current judiciary? The state court needs to reorganize immediately and send more cases to the lower level courts if we want to see results,” Vidovic explained.

“I am very interested in the justice sector in BiH being demystified. They have abolished the principle of material truth. Now, we do not establish truth in justice. We suffer because truth is not in justice,” Nenad Gvozdic, a lawyer from Mostar said.

Analysis on the implementation of the State Strategy for Justice sector reform between 2014 and 2018 was carried out with the support of the US embassy in Sarajevo.

 

 

Justice Sector Reform Debated in Banja Luka

The Balkan investigative reporting network in Bosnia and Herzegovina, BIRN BiH, organized a debate on an analysis of the implementation of the State Strategy for Justice Sector reform between 2014 and 2018 in Banja Luka, Bosnia, on May 19.

Local media and NGO representatives discussed the delays and problems that the judiciary faces in its reform process, pointing out several major obstacles. One of the biggest is transparency, which affects journalists and trial monitors across the country.

Erna Mackic, BIRN BiH editor, mentioned BIRN’s map of war crime prosecutions on the Balkans, noting that, according to the accessibility of judicial documentation, BiH had prosecuted the lowest number of war crime cases, which is not true.

“BiH has the biggest number of war crime verdicts, but you cannot see that because they are unavailable to the public,” Mackic said.

Zlatica Gruhonjic, director of the Centre for Democracy and Transitional Justice, working on documenting detention camps across BiH, said the key problem they face is anonymization of verdicts.

“It is very important to have organizations like BIRN because detektor.ba website is such a valuable source of information,” Gruhonjic said.

“I hope the judiciary will put a special focus during the reform on openness, since the media have so many problems in gathering needed information,” Ognjen Matavulj, journalist from Vecernje novosti, said.

The analysis of the implementation of the State Strategy for Justice sector reform between 2014 and 2018 was conducted with the support of the US embassy in Sarajevo.

BIRN Serbia Film Comes Second in EU Investigative Journalism Awards

The film “Flatland without Birds?”, by journalist Dragan Gmizic, a documentary about illegal bird hunting in Serbia, won second prize for 2016 in the EU Investigative Journalism Awards.

The film, co-produced by BIRN Serbia and Greenfield Productions, examines how the hunting rare turtle doves and quail is organised in Serbia and asks how and whether it can be controlled. The documentary was aired on TV N1, TV CG and Al Jazeera Balkans.

First prize went to Maja Zivanovic, for her series of stories for the Investigative and Analytic Centre of Vojvodina, VOICE. Maja is currently working for BIRN’s regional publication Balkan Insight.

The award for the best young investigative journalist went to Milica Saric, from the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia, CINS. 

BIRN Consultancy: Cooperation with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung

BIRN Consultancy has begun producing a new bi-monthly political, security and socio-economic review of regional developments in cooperation with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. 

As part of its new partnership with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung South East Europe, BIRN Consultancy will be producing the Political Trends and Dynamics Overview which will form a core part of FES SOE’s bi-monthly publication “Political Trends and Dynamics in South East Europe”.

The publication will provide an overview of current political, security, economic and societal developments in the wider region of South-East Europe, with a particular focus on how they could contribute to conflict.

The February/March issue of the publication in its new format can be accessed here: During the first month, the new issue was downloaded more than 3,000 times.

BIRN BiH Joins Visit to NATO Headquarters

Denis Dzidic, editor of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Bosnia and Herzegovina, BIRN BiH, joined a visit by the International Republican Institute, IRI, to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. 

He took part in a meeting titled: “Understanding and Preventing Violent Extremism and Foreign Influence,” which took place on April 20 and 21. 

At numerous other meetings, participants discussed a number of security topics, among which Communication Challenges in Euro-Atlantic Integration and Public Diplomacy Cooperation with Bosnia and Herzegovina were the most important for BIRN BiH. 

Dzidic also presented work that BIRN BiH has done on monitoring court proceedings for terrorism in Bosnia in relation to people who have gone to fight for ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Some of the findings related to research that BIRN BiH has done in relation to religious radicalization.

 

BIRN BiH Unveils Analysis on Justice Reform

BIRN in Bosnia and Herzegovina has published an analysis of the implementation of the State Strategy for Justice Reform between 2014 and 2018, which shows that serious delays have blighted the processes.

According to BIRN BiH’s analysis, delays marked the State Strategy for Justice reform from the start. The document was only adopted 20 months after the original deadline passed, in September 2015, under international pressure. 

The Action Plan to implement the Strategy was only adopted 17 months later, in February this year. Containing 40 pages and hundreds of measures, a handful have been fulfilled. 

“Successes have been marked in regard to the implementation of the law on free legal aid, and enhancement of the system for plea agreement,” BIRN BiH editor Erna Mackic said. 

“However, key issues such as the creation of a state-level Appeal Court and solving the laws on the Constitutional Court and the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council have not been solved.” 

The analysis shows that the creation of the Appeals Court remains a stumbling block because representatives of the judiciary and political parties cannot agree on its proposed jurisdiction. 

Considering that this issue is currently in the EU-led Structured dialogue on justice, and that the issue of the Constitutional Court and the HJPC laws are likely to follow, the creation of the Appeals Court is causing delays in reforms, the analysis shows. 

“Lack of political will to reform the justice sector is visible through delays in the adoption of the Strategy and Action plan but also in the issue of the Appeals Court. It is important to add that many of the measures in the Strategy depend on financial support, which is currently not adequate,” BIRN BiH editor Denis Dzidic said. 

The analysis of the Strategy for Justice Reform between 2014 and 2018 was carried out with the support of the US embassy in Sarajevo and presented in the American Corner in Sarajevo, with officials from judicial institutions, domestic and international organizations and the media present.

BIRN Investigative Stories Win Two Awards

Two BIRN stories won this year’s Investigative awards from the Independent Journalistic Association of Serbia in the categories for print and on-line media.

“Secret of Vucic’s tavern” won the award in the print media category. BIRN Serbia journalist Jelena Veljkovic wrote on how Serbia’s Property Directorate claimed not to know that an exclusive restaurant had been opened in a part of the Belgrade Cooperative building, which the directorate had leased to the “Belgrade on water” company, refusing to answer whether it believed this use of public property was in accordance with the law.

A story by a group of journalists from BIRN and OCCRP, “Making a Killing: The 1.2 Billion Euro Arms Pipeline to Middle East”, meanwhile won the award in the online media category, along with a colleague from the Center for Investigative Journalism, CINS, whose story showed that the Governor of the National bank of Serbia plagiarized a significant part of her doctoral thesis.

The BIRN arms investigation revealed how thousands of assault rifles, mortar shells, rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons, and heavy machine guns have poured into the Middle East from Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. The same story is also among three finalists for the Czech Journalism Prize, the best-known Czech media award.

This year, 75 journalists applied for the award given by the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, NUNS, and the US embassy in Serbia. The jury included Danica Vucenic, journalist from Insajder, Milorad Ivanovic, editor-in-chief of Newsweek Serbia, Predrag Blagojevic, editor-in-chief of online portal Juzne Vesti and Pedja Obradovic, producer at TV N1