News and Events Archives - Page 169 of 264

‘Kingdom of Coal’ Screened in ‘Green’ Open Air Cinema in Mitrovica

Kingdom of Coal, directed by Antoneta Kastrati and Casey Cooper Johnson (Crossing Bridges Production) and produced by Jeta Xharra (BIRN Kosovo), was screened in the sixth edition of the ‘Green’ Open Air Cinema in Mitrovica.

The documentary investigates the economic, health and environmental costs of coal, while exploring the potential for alternative energy in Kosovo.

Kingdom of Coal was screened on the second night of the ‘Green’ Cinema, a project that aims to raise the awareness of the Kosovar citizens on the environmental conditions they live in.

“Besides igniting the curiosity of the more adult audience, the film sparked the interest of the younger generations and teenagers, who appeared to feel compassionate towards the fellow youngsters who were featured in this film,” said Kushtrim Hoti, the coordinator of this project.

This year, the event was held from June 9th until the 11th. An audience of around 500 had the opportunity to watch short films and documentaries by both national and international artists.

The ‘Green’ Cinema is organized by the ‘7arte’ cultural association, which in the future intends to support young artists that want to get involved in building Kosovar awareness on the issue of the environment by producing films of this nature.

Competing with other international films dealing with environmental issues, “Kingdom of Coal” won the Best Green DoX award in the International Short Film and Documentary Festival Dokufest in 2011.

BIRN Albania Holds Roundtable on Environment

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Albania organised a roundtable on June 10 in Tirana bringing together journalists with civil society organisations working on environmental issues.

It was the first in a series of seven roundtables, part of a programme called ‘Exposing Corruption in Albania’, which is financed by the Open Society Foundation in Albania (OSFA) and the Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD).

The project aims to expose corruption cases in eight different sectors: the environment, the judiciary, education, public administration, local government and organised crime, by bridging the gap between journalists and CSOs, and by providing a solid basis for collaboration in exposing abuses of power.

About 20 representatives of non-governmental organisations and journalists debated the possibilities of working together on important issues for the environment but also for ordinary people.

The NGO representatives underlined that there are many environmental problems in Albania that the topic should be a ‘gold mine’ for investigative journalists.

They listed dozens of key topics, ranging from the use of chemicals in agriculture tothe impact of new hydropower plants, illegal fishing and deforestation and answered more detailed questions about the options for research on those topics.

The journalists said that they were interested in writing investigative stories on the topics that the NGOs highlighted and both groups agreed that closer cooperation between CSOs and the media was necessary to tackle complex issues.

BIRN BiH Hosts Events at Sexual Violence Summit

BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina will host several events in the Fringe Exhibition Area at Excel London during the Global Summit on Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict from June 10-12.

The first event will be a media panel entitled ‘The Challenges to Objective Reporting about Wartime Sexual Violence: A Focus on Bosnia’ that will bring together the journalists involved in founding BIRN BiH in 2005 and creating a platform for reporting about war crime trials, victims’ stories and other developments in the justice field.

The media panel will take place on June 10 at 11.30am in discussion room 6, and will be hosted by Nerma Jelacic, ICTY head of communications, Ed Vulliamy (TBC), a writer for The Guardian and The Observer, and Erna Mackic, editor-in-chief of BIRN’s Justice Report.

At the second event entitled: ‘Testimonies of Sexual Violence in BiH: A Short film Followed by a Q&A’, BIRN BiH will present a collection of testimonies recorded for an upcoming film about wartime sexual violence. The film uncovers wartime sex crimes and reflects upon the main issues preventing victims of sexual abuse from coming forward to testify.

The event will take place on June 12 at 4.30pm in discussion room 6, and will be hosted by Andi Gitow, executive producer in the UN’s news and media division, Erna Mackic, editor-in-chief of BIRN’s Justice Report, and Denis Dzidic, a journalist for BIRN’s Balkan Transitional Justice programme.

On the same day at 12.25pm in the Silent Cinema space on Screen 1, BIRN BiH will present ‘Sexual Violence as a War Crime’, a one-and-a-half-hour video compilation of various news reports and testimonies recorded for its ‘TV Justice’ programme.

The entire schedule for the Fringe Exhibition Area at Excel London is available here: http://esvcsummit.com/publicprogramme/Agenda/Index?day=1

You can stay in touch during the event by following the Twitter hashtags: #EndSVCHack, #TimeToAct

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