Aleksa Tesic, a BIRN Serbia journalist, received the prestigious first Dejan Anastasijevic Award for investigative journalism, which was awarded on May 8 by the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia (NUNS).
The award was given to him for the series of articles “Silent Spying: How Serbian Intelligence Hacks Activists’ Phones – Without Them Knowing”, in which it was revealed Serbia’s Security Information Agency (BIA) used the Israeli technology Cellebrite to unlock the phones of activists it interrogated. Some phones were infected with NoviSpy, a spyware developed in Serbia. The research used the findings of a digital forensic analysis conducted by Amnesty International.
“For me, this award is an incentive to continue doing investigative journalism,” said Tesic. “This story revealed the core of espionage in Serbia, which started with the appearance of mobile phones and their mass usage in our country, from the purchase of spyware as early as 2012.
“Today, our whole lives are on the phone. The phone knows more about us than our parents, our closest people. The police, the government, and the secret services want to discover our deepest secrets. It is one of the biggest topics currently in the digital space, it should be the focus of investigative journalists,” said Tesic.
“We will continue to work on this topic. This is not the end, there is still a lot to say. Thank you to Amnesty International, the partners in the project, and the newsroom for their absolute support. I would also like to thank the editor, Milorad Ivanovic, who made all this possible, with whom I worked on this story. We don’t stop here, our appetites are big. Competitiveness is healthy in the journalistic world because it brings better stories.”
The jury described Tesic’s story as “terrifying and complete in equal measure”. It continued: “A society that can produce such stories and such journalists cannot be without hope for the future. Ironically, it is a story about those who try to extinguish that hope.”
The jury consisted of BIRN founder and investigative editor Gordana Igric, investigative reporter and founder of CINS, Branko Cecen, Radio Free Europe investigative editor Mirjana Jevtovic, and reporter, editor and trainer Sasa Lekovic.
The second prize and audience award went to KRIK newsroom journalists Stevan Dojcinovic and Bojana Jovanovic for their research “Sky messages: Struggle in Novi Sad’s SNS over money and affection of Andrej Vucic“.
Balkan Insight/BIRN Serbia journalists Sasa Dragojlo and Avi Scharf were awarded the third prize for their series of articles “Regardless of War Crimes Claims, Serbia’s Arms Sales to Israel Soar.”
“I am so glad that this story was awarded, because I think it is, or should be a number one topic globally,” said Dragojlo. “The Serbian ruling regime has increased its ammunition export to Israel by 30 times, in a year marked by one of the most horrific and cynical crimes in Gaza – crimes that have been ignored or even supported by the most powerful Western countries that often label themselves as bastions of humanism.
“I am also happy because of the collaboration with Haaretz, a media outlet that faces pressures in Israel, as well as BIRN in Serbia. We showed that there are no taboo topics for us and that professional journalism is always at the forefront of the fight for truth and justice, no matter the obstacles.”
Special awards for investigative stories about the Novi Sad train station disaster, and for local journalists
Special awards this year were awarded to Nova Ekonomija journalists Filip Rudic and Aleksandra Nenadovic, and Forbes Srbija journalist Ivan Radak. The jury considered they deserved special recognition because of the subject of their reports.
“The fascinating speed with which they mastered a very complex – but also the most important – topic in Serbia did not affect their high standards in their continuous discovery of key facts about what we were all feverishly interested in – the reconstruction of the railway station in Novi Sad and its tragic collapse,” the jury said. “In short, they showed why there can be neither democracy nor justice without free and professional media.”
As a sign of support for local journalists who work in particularly demanding conditions, NUNS awarded Juzne Vesti journalist Tamara Radovanovic for the report: “Millions for two companies in the last 4 years of the SNS government in Nis“. In its explanation, the jury pointed out that the report was used as evidence by investigators in the indictment against the recent mayor of Nis, Dragana Sotirovski.
For 20 years, the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia has been giving awards for investigations on key topics for citizens, which reveal previously unknown facts using journalistic expertise. This year, there were 51 applications, and 14 were shortlisted. Among the shortlisted were two more BIRN stories: “Changes in public transportation: Private individuals close to Zvonko Veselinovic are preparing to take over the job in Belgrade” by Jelena Zoric and Gordana Andric, and “Parallel Government: How Vucic Turned Serbia’s Constitution on its Head” by Sasa Dragojlo.