Category: People

Dzana Brkanic

Dzana joined the BIRN team in May 2013. She has been working as a journalist since 2005 after beginning her career as a reporter for Radio Free Europe. Since December 2019, she has been Deputy Editor in BIRN BiH.

She has worked as an editor and journalist for several media outlets in Bosnias, including the daily newspaper Dnevni Avaz, TV Sarajevo and Alfa TV, researching and reporting on politics, the economy, crime, culture and other issues.

Before joining BIRN, Brkanic worked as communications officer for the Media Intelligence Agency (MIA), becoming a PR specialist with in-depth knowledge of the media scene in Bosnia and the region. She graduated in journalism at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Sarajevo.

Brkanic is the author of two documentaries: Underground, about a war hospital built four meters below ground in Olovo during the war, where more than 500 babies were born and hundreds of lives saved; and Four Walls, about the reduction of rights of LGBTIQ persons in BiH and the region, as well as attacks by right-wing and extremist organizations against members of that community.

She contributed to a film, Journalism Is not a Crime, as a director, and also acted as a researcher on two films about missing persons and victims of wartime sexual violence produced by BIRN BiH.

In recent years, she has worked as a trainer for young journalists and students at numerous workshops on reporting on victims, missing persons, reporting from court and investigative journalism. She has participated in many conferences as a panelist.

She won the European Union Investigative Journalism Awards for her investigation into non-transparent collection of humanitarian funds for the construction of wells and mosques in Africa in 2021, and, as a co-author, for a research of hate crimes in 2023. As member of BIRN BiH newsroom, she won the Special Award of the European Press Prize in 2020 for “efforts and success in securing justice for war crime victims”.

Jeta Xharra

Jeta Xharra is a renowned journalist in Kosovo and Balkans, hosting the award-winning current-affairs TV programme, Life in Kosovo.

Since 2005, Xharra is the Country Director of BIRN office in Kosovo and the editor-in-chief of Kosovo’s most-watched current affairs TV programme, Life in Kosovo.

Xharra got into journalism working as a fixer/local producer for BBC News and Channel 4 in 1998 and later became the Manager of the BBC Kosovo Bureau. In 1999 Jeta worked for BBC News in Albania and Macedonia.

She graduated with an MA in War Studies from King’s College London (2000) and an MA with Distinction in Screenwriting from the London College of Printing (2002).

She has published a front-page article in ‘The Independent’ and other texts in The Economist, Sunday Telegraph and Jane’s Intelligence Review. While in the UK, Xharra worked for the Foreign News Planning Desk at the BBC World Service.

In 2003 Xharra became the project director for IWPR Kosovo office, where she made most impact with vigilant and challenging moderation of popular current affairs programmes broadcast on the main Kosovo TV channels, RTK and KTV. Under Xharra’s supervision, Kosovo was the first office in the IWPR

Balkan project to develop a three-month journalism training programme, which attracted over 200 people for 20 places.

‘Warless’, a play that Xharra wrote in English, was chosen as one of the 10 best plays among 550 that competed in the Young Writers Festival in Royal Court Theatre in London where it had a public reading on December 10 2004.

Steve Crawshaw

From 2002 to 2023 Steve worked for Human Rights Watch (UK director and UN advocacy director), Amnesty International (international advocacy director and Director of the Office of the Secretary General) and Freedom from Torture (policy and advocacy director).

He is now writing a book on war crimes and international justice, Prosecuting the Powerful (Bridge Street Press/Little, Brown).

Steve worked as a journalist for many years, including for the Independent, which he joined at its launch in 1986. He reported for The Independent on the East European revolutions, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Balkan wars.

His previous books include Goodbye to the USSR, Easier Fatherland: Germany and the Twenty-First Century, Small Acts of Resistance (foreword by Václav Havel) and Street Spirit: The Power of Protest and Mischief (foreword by Ai Weiwei).

 

 

Ana Petruseva

Ana Petruseva is an experienced journalist and one of the founders of the BIRN regional network and BIRN Macedonia.

As the country director of BIRN Macedonia, she organises trainings and debates involving journalists throughout the country, and secures funding for the organisation.

Prior to joining BIRN, Ana was the Macedonia country director for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, IWPR. She previously worked as a journalist for a variety of media outlets in Macedonia and abroad, including Reuters, Deutsche Welle, Telma TV and daily newspaper Dnevnik.

Ana was the associate producer of the IWPR documentary , “Ohrid and Beyond,” and served as the co-author and producer of the BIRN Kosovo documentary, “Does Anyone Have a Plan?”

Ana graduated from the Skopje Journalism School in the Faculty of Law at the University of St. Cyril and Methodius.

Tim Judah

Tim is journalist and author and special correspondent for The Economist.

Tim has worked for many major publications and broadcasters, notably writing wartime reportage from Afghanistan to Ukraine for The New York Review of Books.

He is the author of three books on the Balkans—The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, Kosovo: War & Revenge and Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know. He published a book on the conflict in Ukraine – In Wartime: Stories from Ukraine in 2016.

For much of 2022 and early 2023 he covered the Ukraine war for The New York Review of Books, The Economist and the Financial Times. He was shortlisted for the 2022 Bayeux-Calvedos award for war correspondents.

Per Byman

Per is a Swedish aid worker. Since 2023 he has been working for Caritas Germany as Senior Humanitarian Advisor for Ukraine and Moldova. Previously, he was the Managing Director at NRC Flüchtlingshilfe Deutschland, which he joined in 2018.

Between 2005 and 2012 he worked for the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, SIDA, where he served as head of the humanitarian unit responsible for disaster relief. From 1999-2005 Per worked as a program officer for human rights and democracy at Sida’s unit for South Eastern Europe.

Between 1991 and 1997 he worked with humanitarian projects and reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the international Caritas network. He holds an MA in German political linguistics (Politolinguistik).

 

Vesna Bjekic (1952-2014)

Over the course of her journalism career, Vesna has worked with Politika, 4 Jul, YU Panorama, Revijalna Stampa, many local Serbian newspapers, and Croatian weekly Danas.

In 1992, as Yugoslavia fell apart, she began working freelance, and from 1993 until 2000 was a key member of the Alternative Information Network, AIM.

After a time as a contributor to IWPR’s Balkan Crisis Report, she took up the position of IWPR Serbia Office Manager.

Today, she manages the BIRN Hub / BIRN Ltd. office in Belgrade, and coordinates translation and editing for all BIRN’s Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian language report.

 

Denis Dzidic

Denis Dzidic is the Director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH), a Sarajevo-based media NGO specializing in reporting on transitional justice, corruption, human rights, and security.

With over 18 years of journalistic experience, he has dedicated his career to amplifying the voices of war-crime victims and marginalized groups in Bosnian society.

Under his leadership, BIRN BiH has developed innovative tools and databases, such as “Mapping Hate,” “Months of Siege,” and the “Database of Judicially Established Facts”, which document war crimes, counter denial and revisionism and serve as educational and research resources, both locally and internationally.

Džidić spearheaded the creation of the memorial room “Lives Behind the Fields of Death” with the Srebrenica Memorial Centre, recording 100 testimonies of genocide survivors. His project “Crime Scenes” revisits former mass killing sites through photography and survivor testimony, deepening public understanding of Bosnia’s wartime legacy.

He has led advocacy efforts to improve transparency in Bosnia’s judiciary, collecting thousands of citizens’ signatures demanding public access to court rulings, which resulted in the Prosecutor’s Office beginning to publish corruption indictments online.

He is also author of a documentary movie Justice and Truth, which examines Ukraine’s pursuit of justice over the war crimes committed by Russian forces following Russia’s 2022 invasion, drawing on lessons from Bosnia. He is the author and co-author of numerous guidelines and recommendations related to the transitional justice and rule-of-law topics.

Dzidic regularly represents BIRN BiH at high-level international meetings with the UN, the EU and OSCE, promoting democratic reforms and human rights. His work has earned accolades, including the Nino Catic Award and Goran Bubalo Peace Award, and he led the organisation when receiving the Special European Press Prize for advancing justice for war-crime victims.

Kalina Simic

Kalina Simic joined BIRN Serbia in August 2012 as a project manager.

In addition to her work on monitoring projects, Kalina also manages projects that focus on promoting communication between the local administration in south Serbia and citizens there.

Kalina has extensive experience in advertising, as well as governmental and NGO work. In the area of advertising and marketing, she worked for the Hammer Creative Agency of Novi Sad, Leo Burnett as well as Cyber Entertainment in Belgrade.

In her work for local governments, she managed various activities and projects for the Executive Council of Vojvodina and the Serbian Ministry for Human and Minority Rights. In addition, she worked for the Public Administration and Local Government Center (PALGO Center), Center for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID) and Novi Sad School of Journalism.

Kalina studied Psychology at Novi Sad University. In addition to her formal education, Kalina has attended more than 15 different trainings and courses.

Marija Petrovic

Marija is a sales professional with a background in the media industry in Serbia and East Asia.

A member of the Belgrade Insight team at the time of the newspaper’s launch in 2008, Marija rejoined the team a year ago to head up the sales and marketing division.

Marija is well-acquainted with the international community in Belgrade through her previous experience as a field representative with the Club de Madrid.