Category: News and Events

EU Prize Highlights Cross-Border Collaboration

An award-winning investigation into a $75m road-building contract underscores the importance of cross-border collaboration.

An investigation into how a multi-million-dollar road construction contract was quietly handed to a consortium with little highway-building experience was made possible thanks to close collaboration between journalists in Kosovo and Serbia.

The story, which secured third prize last week in the European Union’s investigative journalism awards for Serbia [https://birn.eu.com/en/news-and-events/birn-reports-win-eu-investigative-journalism-awards], was produced as part of the Austrian-Development-Cooperation funded “A Paper Trail to Better Governance”  project.

BIRN assembled a team of five investigative journalists in Albania, Austria, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia to carry out a series of pioneering, year-long, cross-border investigations into the biggest players in this road building industry, their links to power and how they have spent – and sometimes squandered – massive public budgets.

Investigations, including the award-winning story – Veselinovic-linked Consortium Bags 75m Dollar Contract in Secret Deal http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/veselinovic-linked-consortium-bags-75m-dollar-contract-in-secret-deal,  were published on a bespoke webpage – Road to Ruin [http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/page/road-to-ruin-home]. It features an interactive map of highway projects as well as background material on how corruption affects the construction industry.

The prize-winning story was compiled by Petrit Colaku and Kreshnik Gashi in Pristina and Ivan Angelovski, and Jelena Cosic in Belgrade.

Project editor Lawrence Marzouk said: “Working across borders was absolutely critical for this story as it required official documents from institutions in both Serbia and Kosovo, as well as on the ground contacts.

“With the team’s close collaboration, we were able to build the full picture of Zvonko Veselinovic’s shady business deals.

“This investigation is just one excellent example of the many stories published as part of the project which would not have been possible without strong teams, working together across the region”.

“A Paper Trail to Better Governance” project started in October 2013 and has honed the skills of dozens of investigative journalists in the Balkans and Moldova, helping reporters to hold officials to account and improving the implementation and use of freedom of information laws.

BIRN Serbia journalist Aleksandar Djordjevic won first prize in the EU for his report entitled “Pumping Out the Pit and the Budget”.

BIRN Reports Win EU Investigative Journalism Awards

BIRN Serbia journalist Aleksandar Djordjevic win first prize in the EU awards for investigative journalism in Serbia, while the third prize went to BIRN’s Ivan Angelovski, Jelena Cosic, Petrit Collaku and Kreshnik Gashi.

Aleksandar Djordjevic’s report entitled ‘Pumping Out the Pit and the Budget’ was named the best investigative story in 2015 in the EU awards for investigative journalism on Tuesday.

Djordjevic’s story revealed that the public company Electric Power Industry of Serbia awarded a public tender for to pump flood water out of the most important mine in Serbia to an inexperienced consortium, increasing the cost of the whole operation.

After the investigation in January 2015, BIRN was publicly criticised by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and media that support his administration.

Third prize went to Ivan Angelovski, Jelena Cosic, Petrit Colaku and Kreshnik Gashi for a story revealing how a multi-million-dollar road construction contract was quietly handed to a consortium with little highway-building experience and linked to controversial Serbian businessman Zvonko Veselinovic. The story was produced as part of “A Paper Trail for Better Governance” programme, which is funded by Austrian Development Cooperatiion.

The president of the jury, a member of the Anti-Corruption Council, Miroslava Milenovic, stressed the importance of investigative journalism to the general public.

“If there were no investigative journalism, many important events in society, many cases of corruption and social neglect of public goods, the arrogance of the political and economic elite would stay hidden from the public,” said Milenovic.

The award for the best young investigative reporter went to journalists Snezna Djuric and Novak Grujic from the news site Whistle for their ‘Municipal Radar’ series, while RTV Vojvodina journalist Darko Sper scooped the second prize for his story about the trial of a banned neo-Nazi organisation called the National Formation.

 

BIRN Kosovo Publishes Court Monitoring Report

BIRN Kosovo court monitoring report paid particular attention to trials related to corruption but also addressed several other problems that were observed during fieldwork.

The report contains detailed analysis on topics such as sentencing policies, lack of unification of court fees, the situation in the Palace of Justice, the judges’ strike, analysis of various laws and the lack of personnel in the judiciary and prosecution.

The report also sheds light on the respect for legal provisions during trials (or the lack thereof), including the level of preparation of prosecutors for trials (or the lack thereof), delays in cases, lack of equality of parties in the trial, holding trials without the defendants being present, lack of depiction of the factual situation in the records, lawyers disrupting order in the courtroom, lack of respect for legal time limits, lack of seriousness, negligence and incomplete compositions of the trial panel.

Click to download report in English.

Click to download report in Albanian.

Click to download report in Serbian.

BIRN Albania Investigation Wins EU Award

The investigation Albania’s Judges Wealth Escapes Scrutiny, by journalist Leonard Bakillari has won the first prize in the EU Investigative Journalism Award 2015 for Albania.

Bakillari was awarded first prize for his article on corruption in the judiciary system, published in reporter.al and BalkanInsight.com – BIRN online publications.

Second prize went to Ornela Liperi of economic magazine “Monitor” for her article on the financial crisis and debt situation of business companies in Albania. The award for best article by young investigative journalist was given to Habjon Hasani for his TV report on the petroleum concession and its effects on economy,

“Freedom of expression and freedom of the media implies a commitment to democracy, good governance and political accountability. These are some of prerequisites for a country to become part of the EU and one of the reasons why each of you play such an important role in creating EU standards,” said Jan Rudolph, Head of Political, Economic and Information Section announcing the EU Investigative Journalism Awards.

Bakillari’s investigation was published as part of BIRN Albania’s program on Exposing Corruption in Albania, which is financed by the Open Society Foundation in Albania (OSFA), the Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). 

BIRN’s Kosovo War Film Wins US Festival Award

BIRN’s film The Unidentified, investigating the commanders responsible for brutal attacks during the Kosovo war, was given the best short documentary award at the South East European Film Festival in LA.

The Unidentified, which names the Serbian officers who ordered attacks on Kosovo villages around the town of Pec/Peja in 1999 and those involved in the cover-up operation to hide the victims’ bodies, was awarded the best short documentary prize at the South East European Film Festival in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Nemanja Babic, the director of the film, told the audience at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills that work on the film continued for two years as the production team struggled to persuade all those involved, both perpetrators and victims, to give interviews for the documentary.

“It took us months to convince a lot of people to appear in this documentary. Some of the witnesses first said yes and then they would change their mind once we pressed ‘play’ on the camera,” Babic said.

“This prolonged the whole process of filming, but in the end the work paid off and this prize also inspires us to continue working on this topic,” he added.

The Unidentified takes viewers back to 1999, to the villages of Ljubenic, Cuska, Pavljan and Zahac near Pec/Peja in Kosovo, where Serbian fighters killed more than 118 Albanian civilians. Their bodies were either burned or removed, and some of them were later found in mass graves at the Batajnica police training centre near Belgrade in 2001.

The trial of 11 fighters alleged to have been involved in the killings – 10 of them accused of being direct perpetrators – is still ongoing in Belgrade.

In February 2014, nine of them were sentenced to a total of 106 years in jail but an appeals court annulled the verdict last March, calling it “incomprehensible and contradictory” and sent the case for retrial.

The film had its international premiere at last year’s Sarajevo Film Festival and has been screened at various other festivals and institutes, in Paris, New York, Washington DC, Zagreb, Belgrade, Prizren, Pristina, Tirana, Maribor and Los Angeles.

The Unidentified will also be screened for the first time in Belgrade on May 14 at this year’s BELDOCS film festival.

BIRN Wins Investigative Reporting Award

BIRN journalist Aleksandar Dordjevic scooped first prize for the best investigative journalism story in Serbia’s print media.

The award was given by the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia, NUNS, and the US Embassy to Belgrade at a ceremony on Thursday, May 5.

The investigation, produced by BIRN Serbia and published in the magazine Vreme, revealed how the Belgrade Business School, under pressure from government officials, unlawfully lent 7 million euros to heavily indebted companies that were unlikely to repay the money.

The jury said the story raised important questions about corruption and impunity in Serbia.

US Ambassador to Serbia Kyle Randolph Scott told the ceremony: “Journalists in Serbia work in tough conditions. Investigative reporting requires non-stop work, particular attention to the facts, collecting data from different sources and often personal courage.”

The award for the best radio and television investigation went to Vera Aksentijevic, journalist at the public broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia. The prize for online media was secured by Dragana Peco, Stevan Dojcinovic and Atanas Cobaov from investigative portal KRIK – Crime and Corruption Reporting Network – for a series of articles about the Mayor of Belgrade.

This is the fourth time BIRN Serbia has scooped the award for best investigation, and this year BIRN journalists were shortlisted for two other stories.

Jelena Veljkovic, BIRN Serbia journalist, and Vladimir Kostic, from the Serbian Center for Investigative Journalism, were among the finalists for their investigation into how politician Bratislav Gasic awarded contracts to companies linked to his family while he was a mayor of Krusevac.

Ivan Angelovski, Petrit Colaku, Kreshnik Gashi and Jelena Cosic were shortlisted in the online media category for a story revealing how a multi-million-dollar road construction contract was quietly handed to a consortium with little highway-building experience and linked to notorious businessman Zvonko Veselinovic.

BIRN Albania Holds Training on Local Gov. and FOI Law

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Albania held a three day training for local journalists from across the country from April 16th to April 19th in the coastal city of Durres. 

In the training 12 journalists working as reporters and editors for local news media outlets participated. The training aimed to improve their pitching and reporting skills as well as their understanding of Albania’s Freedom of Information Law.
During the training the journalists were introduced to BIRN Network’s ethical and professional standards.

The training was held as part of BIRN Albania’s initiative to monitor and report on the 61 new municipalities that emerged from the country’s territorial-administrative reform in 2015, as well as key actors of change from civil society and grassroots organization.

The training for local journalist was supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

In the next 12-months BIRN Albania in cooperation with the journalists that participated in the training will produce two monitoring reports on the implementation of the Freedom of Information Law from municipalities as well as features, news analysis, and investigations targeting the work of local government elected and appointed officials.

With the help of BIRN editors/trainers the journalists will also produce a series of 36 features on actors of change –individuals, NGOs or grassroots organization – which play a pivotal rule to enhance democracy and civic participation on the local level, empowering communities to hold those in power accountable.

Tenth Edition of BFJE Launched in Vienna

The tenth Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence got underway in Vienna with a multimedia workshop, reporting/writing tips and tailored editorial guidance for 10 new fellows from across the Balkan region.

With the participation of the ERSTE Foundation, Open Society Foundations and BIRN, fellows from Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Macedonia came together with the Fellowship team to begin work on their in-depth stories.

They received practical tips from Fellowship programme editors, focused on planning, research, reporting and writing, as well as individually tailored advice and workshops on multimedia journalism.

The sessions were led by former Reuters bureau chief for the Balkans Andrew Gray, who was BFJE editor for the previous two years, and his successor as BFJE editor Matt Robinson, who also formerly led the Reuters bureau in Belgrade. Matt will now mentor and support the fellows over the months to come.

The 10 journalists also benefited from a workshop by Romanian photographer Cosmin Bumbut and BFJE alumna Elena Stancu, an EU Press prize nominee in 2015, on the value of multimedia in storytelling.

The fellows now embark on four months of research, reporting and writing, involving trips within Europe, before submitting their final work.

 

BIG DEAL: The Association should not be prioritized over rule of law

On Tuesday, April 19, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and Internews Kosova held a roundtable to launch and discuss the most recent publication by BIG DEAL,  a civic oversight initiative on the Kosovo-Serbia negotiations.

Three years since the ‘historic’ “First agreement on principles” was signed in Brussels by Ivica Dacic and Hashim Thaci, only four of sixteen agreements have been implemented.

On the other hand, the formation of the Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities poses challenges for Kosovo’s political stability, its rule of law, and for the credibility of the European Union, the BIG DEAL report argues.

“By making the dialogue their top priority, the EU and the US have constantly tolerated the weakness of democracy and the rule of law in Kosovo. Yet the damage inflicted on both as a consequence has risked to undo even the limited progress achieved in the dialogue so far,” said Bodo Weber of the Democratization Policy Council, the author of the report. “Therefore the US and the EU need to demonstrate full commitment to and respect for the constitutional and legal foundations of the state of Kosovo in the framework of the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue.”

The report, entitled “Awkward Juggling: Constitutional insecurity, political instability and rule of law in the Kosovo- Serbia dialogue” examines the way forward for the implementation of key agreements in the wake of the December ruling by Kosovo’s Constitutional Court on the general principles of the future Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities.

The report calls on the European External Action Service to “engage international experts on the topics of constitutional law, forms of positive discrimination in multi-ethnic polities and on local self-governance to participate in the process of drafting the Statute of the future Association/Community of Serb majority municipalities.”

Panelists, including the EU representative in Kosovo, Samuel Zbogar and Jelena Milic from the Center for Euro Atlantic Studies, also discussed the current stagnation with implementation of agreements in general.

“It is unfortunate that, similar to six months ago when we presented our comprehensive monitoring report, only four of 16 reached agreements have been fully implemented,” said Faik Ispahiu, Executive Director of Internews Kosova. “Five years after the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue began, Kosovo and Serbia are refusing to recognize one another’s diplomas. The draft law on cadastre has been blocked for two years with no progress, and Kosovars still don’t have an operating telephone code despite the fact that not one, but two agreements have been signed about this very topic.”

Samuel Zbogar, EU representative in Kosovo stated that their job was to facilitate the process and believed normalization was in Kosovo’s interest.

However, we warned that with the political situation in Kosovo, there is a need to build wider political consensus around the dialogue.

“Although it has been plainly stated by members of the Serbian government that their top priority is the formation of the Association/Community, this should not be the condition for the implementation of other agreements that were signed long before the 19 April 2013 agreement,” Xharra said. “The fair implementation tempo should push for the agreements to be chronologically implemented: those that were signed first should be fully implemented first.”

Moreover, said BIRN Kosovo Director Jeta Xharra, EU and US diplomats need to send clear signals to both Prishtina and Belgrade that the implementation of all other pending agreements is just as important as the one on the Association/Community.

BIG DEAL is a platform for civic oversight of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue led by BIRN Kosovo, Internews Kosova and BIRN Serbia. Members of BIG DEAL include the Advocacy Center for Democratic Culture (ACDC) of North Mitrovica. The Belgrade-based Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, and the Berlin-based Democratization Policy Council.

“Our civic oversight initiative has brought progress,” said Tanja Maksic, Program Coordinator of BIRN Serbia.

“We as BIG DEAL have demanded that delegations of Serbia and Kosovo bring down the cost of travel because it was costing a fortune for people to cross the border from one neighbour to another – today, I am glad this cost has come down significantly,” said Maksic.

Government to stop with witch hunt

BIRN Serbia calls representatives of the Serbian government to stop deceiving the public and participating in the campaign against civil society organisations, which report professionally and objectively on the work of Serbian institutions.

We request that instead of suppressing dissenting voices, the government create an environment where organisations that point to criminal actions and corruption will be involved in debate on fundamental issues in our society in a fair and free manner.
Instead of openness to criticism, Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has joined an ongoing campaign led by major Serbian tabloids against independent media outlets such as the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, Serbia’s Centre for Investigative Journalist, CINS, and the Crime and Corruption Reporting Network, KRIK.
In the television show Cirilica [Cyrillic], broadcast on Serbia-wide Happy TV on November 9, Prime Minister Vucic once again accused those pointing to corruption in the state of aiming to overthrow the Serbian government. These government watchdogs, BIRN Serbia included, are accused of using lies to attack the state.
It is an extremely dangerous environment when the prime minister is using his position to dismiss opponents, qualifying them as mobsters, thieves and criminals despite no evidence or opportunity for them to defend themselves. This creates an atmosphere where unpredictable and sometimes lethal consequences exist.
During his interview with Happy TV, Prime Minister Vucic voiced his support of the theory that independent investigative centres in Serbia are paid by foreign donors to destabilise the government.
The day prior, the interior minister Nebojsa Stefanovic addressed the same theory in his appearance on national broadcaster TV Pink’s programme Teska rec. He used his public podium to express allegations that BIRN, CINS and KRIK are being financed exclusively by foreign donations. This approach suggests that BIRN’s financing is controversial.
We would like to remind the public that BIRN is not exclusively financed from foreign funders, but also with taxpayers’ money through the government’s office for cooperation with civil society. BIRN Serbia is not a phantom organisation on a secret mission to cause unrest, but an organisation that has worked in Serbia for ten years, in accordance to all the laws of our state. BIRN Serbia also makes all data, including financial records, publically available through the competent bodies.
The latest attacks are merely a continuation of the campaign against BIRN, which started in April 2014. The initial attack was sparked when BIRN published the draft agreement between the Serbian government and Etihad Airways, which showed that the state had paid more for its stake in carrier Air Serbia than it had revealed to the public. That campaign reached a peak earlier this year after an investigation into the controversial tender for de-watering Serbia’s biggest mine, Tamnava, was published. To this day, the findings have not been denied.
BIRN believes that this continual campaign was directed at discrediting the organisation in the absence of arguments, which would deny the findings of our published investigations.