Tag: Albania

The event was held as part of the project “Raising Awareness about Accountability and Transparency through Investigative Reporting”, financed by the National Endowment for Democracy.

The project aims to boost the fight against the culture of impunity in Albania through investigative journalism, bridging the gap between civil society organisations and journalists, building their capacities and creating common ground for their joint action in exposing corruption cases in the country.

Rigels Xhemollari, the executive director of Civic Resistance, an organisation working to improve the quality of higher education in Albania, moderated the roundtable.

At the roundtable, participants suggested a number of key topics worth investigating.

They ranged from public-private partnerships for the construction of news schools to poor investments made in the infrastructure of university dormitories, the management of university dorms, students IDs and benefits, the quality of higher educational publications, elections to student councils, the education budget, the curricula for pre-college education, teacher recruitment, segregated schools, the quality of schools texts, school infrastructure, teacher transportation and other topics.

The goal of the roundtable was to draw attention to an upcoming call for grant proposals to fund investigative reporting on education.

BIRN Albania will make the call in the near future. Three journalists will be selected by an independent jury and then mentored by BIRN editors for three months, as they produce hard-hitting investigative reports on this important topic.

BIRN is offering grants for three journalists to cover labour rights stories, with mentoring by experienced editors.

The call is held as part of the project ‘Strengthening Media’s Role in the Fight against Corruption’, supported by the Open Society Foundation in Albania.

The project aims to strengthen reporting on corruption in the country through cooperation with civil society, in order to help create a more informed citizenry that is engaged in the democratic process.

Three journalists will be awarded grants to cover their expenses while conducting investigations and writing their stories on labour rights.

The journalists will have around three months to dig deeper and research their ideas, and will also have the opportunity to work with experienced editors as mentors to guide them through the process of writing in accordance with BIRN standards.

The call only applies to journalists from Albania and closes on August 25, 2019.

Click here for more information (in Albanian) about the application procedure.

Click here to download the application form (in Albanian).

Ten human rights organisations in Albania on Friday denounced the Prime Minister’s initiative to “regulate the online media”, calling it “a censorship package”.

The Albanian Center for Quality Journalism, MediaLook, the Albanian Institute of Science, the Albanian Media Council, the Albanian Media Institute, the Association of Professional Journalists of Albania, BIRN Albania, Civil Rights Defenders, Res Publica and the Union Of Albanian Journalists urged the Socialist Party-led government to withdraw the proposal, arguing that current laws on defamation are sufficient.

“We encourage the government of Albania to withdraw these two bills and call on parliament not to approve them,” the statement reads.

“These drafts laws risk the increase of censorship and self-censorship in the local media and could contribute to further setbacks on media freedom and freedom of expression in Albania, which, based on the June 2019 assessment of seven international organizations, is ‘deteriorating,’” the statement adds.

The government of Prime Minister Edi Rama claims the country needs “to discipline” the online media in order “to improve the quality of the information and public discourse”.

This draft law gives the Complaints Council the power to oblige electronic publications service providers to publish an apology, remove content or insert a pop-up notice if they are found to have violated provisions on dignity and privacy.

This council has the power to fine media up to 8,300 euros for such violations. A second law subjects online media to the Telecommunication and Postal Authority, AKEP, which will have the power to insert pop-ups on websites if they have been found in breach of the law by the Complaints Council. Failure to comply with AKEP would result in fines up to 830,000 euros.

“These draft laws, in an unprecedented way in democratic countries, seek to impose a regime of administrative control on the online media,” the rights organizations say.

Link: Statement in English

The event was held as part of the project ‘Strengthening Media’s Role in the Fight Against Corruption,’ financed by the Open Society Foundation in Albania.  The project aims to strengthen reporting on corruption in the country through cooperation with civil society, in order to help create a more informed citizenry that is engaged in the democratic process.

The roundtable was moderated by Vasilika Laci from Civil Rights Defenders and saw contributions from a variety of activists, journalists and labour rights groups in Albania.

During the roundtable, the participants suggested a series of key topics to be investigated, including problems with the management of properties of unions, abuse of collective contracts in public companies, the cost of illegal dismissals of public servants, women’s unpaid work in Albania, abuse of labour subsidies, minimum wage and living income and many other topics.

The goal of the roundtable was to draw attention to an upcoming call for grant proposals to fund investigative reporting on the topic of labour rights. The call will be launched in the coming days by BIRN Albania.

Three journalists will be selected by an independent jury and will be mentored by BIRN editors for a period of three months as they produce hard-hitting investigative reports on the topic.