Tag: Bosnia and Herzegovina

BIRN BiH presented its analysis of cases dealing with terrorism, corruption and organised crime from the beginning of 2016 a press conference on July 7.

The research indicates that the Bosnian state prosecution and court has processed more than 20 cases relating to terrorism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, most of which concern suspects who have gone to fight abroad and joined terrorist organizations.

The problems in these cases relate to cooperation between investigative agencies, the exchange of data and the deradicalisation of convicts after they have served their sentences.

As far as corruption is concerned, BIRN BiH’s analysis shows that the state prosecution has focused on smaller corruption cases, because most of ended with acquittals, conditional sentences or sentences of up to one year that can be avoided through payments of small amounts of money.

The state judiciary also resolved more than 230 cases of organised crime.

A big problem in these cases concerned the confiscation of property illegally acquired through the commission of the crimes.

The BIRN BiH analysis indicates that prosecutors involved in organised crime cases sometimes do not request the confiscation of property because it is too time-consuming during the evidence presentation process.

The analysis also points to the inability of the Bosnian state court to ensure the money is collected, as well as to situations in which convicts sentenced to up to one year in prison pay a fine but still fail to return the illegally-acquired property.

At the press conference, BIRN BiH also presented its new portal detektor.ba which contains articles, analysis pieces, research results and interviews, as well as audio and video materials on war crimes, transitional justice, the monitoring of the judiciary, terrorism, corruption and organised crime.

The detektor.ba site also contains a unique archive consisting of more than 25,000 articles, 1,553 radio shows, 78 episodes of ‘TV Justice’, numerous special issues, interviews and footage amassed over many years of monitoring war-crime trials and journalistic work in the field of transitional justice.

 

Mirna Buljugic, director of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIRN BiH), participated in the panel discussion at the Meeting Point Cinema in Sarajevo on June 27.

Buljugic spoke about the BIRN documentary ‘The Silent Scream’, which is dedicated to survivors of wartime sexual violence.

“Our aim was to initiate a debate in society on the position of victims of sexual violence and show them they are not alone and explain to them why it is important for them to share their experiences so the perpetrators will be punished,” she said.

Buljugic also spoke about the problem of the legal regulation of the status of victims, which is not harmonised in Bosnia’s two entities, as well as the lack of political support for the harmonisation of the laws.

Belma Becirbasic, a researcher and journalist, said many perpetrators were still at large.

“The fact that impunity is still a norm when it comes to sexual crimes during the conflict is one of the biggest problems,” said Becirbasic.

The film ‘Thinking of You’, about a project to help women who raped during the war in Kosovo, produced by Ana di Lellio, was screened before the panel discussion.

Tatjana Milovanovic of the Post-Conflict Research Center spoke about visual art as a strong platform for reconciliation.

“We should focus on young people in the reconciliation process, because they are the bearers of future changes,” Milovanovic said.

The WARM Festival, which was held in Sarajevo from June 26 to July 2, brings together journalists, artists, historians, researchers and activists involved in war reporting, art and memorialisation. 

 

Soon after it was published on BIRN BiH’s portal, www.justice-report.com, it was republished by 169 domestic and regional print and electronic media outlets, including several daily newspapers and portals with the highest readership in Bosnia, such as Dnevni Avaz, N1, FTV and Klix.ba, as well as by Croatian Index.hr, Dnevnik.hr and Serbian Blic.rs.

According to Google Analytics, a large number of visits to the article was registered on the original platform, making it the most-read article, while analysis of its publication on BIRN BiH’s Facebook page was read by 15,000 people. The story was also published on our regional portal www.balkanisight.com, where it became one of the most read articles on the portal.   

The exploration of the issue of polygamy and illegal marriage in Bosnias, as well as the increased presence and influence of Arab citizens in Bosnia, generated strong reactions on forums in Bosnia. Republication of our story on the most widely read portal in Bosnia, Klix.ba, drew the most comments over the course of one day, while the news was conveyed via the social networks of other media stations, as well as on a large number of private profiles of citizens in Bosnia and the region, all during a short period of time.

The article also prompted the most viewed regional info TV station, N1, to film its own footage on the “buying” of Bosnian wives and of sexual services by Arab tourists, which directly drew on BIRN BiH’s research. Nova TV’s magazine Provjereno, ARD’s Europamagazin and Weltspiegel have meanwhile have expressed interest in presenting the data obtained by BIRN BiH to the public.

Journalists of BIRN BiH attended a training session held by Vasvija Vidovic, a highly respected lawyer from Sarajevo with long experience in the field of law, in order to gain fresh education and insight into impartial reporting, the fight for transparency in the judicial sector and respect for the freedom and rights of the media.  

Vidovic, one of the most eminent persons in the Bosnian judiciary, began her long career in the former Yugoslavia as a judge in the crime section. In the meantime she gained extensive experience in numerous lawsuits and international and prosecution projects.   

The training focussed on the importance of the principle of publicity within the law on criminal proceedings, as prescribed under the European Convention, and on transparency and freedom of the media as the only way for the public to monitor the judiciary on behalf of citizens.

During their discussions, the trainer and the journalists reflected on examples from Bosnian practices that BIRN BiH journalists face daily while following war-crime trials and reporting on corruption, crime and terrorism.

Mentioned examples concerned disrespect for the principle of publicity and misuse of exceptions, with the aim of hiding omissions within the judicial system in Bosnia.

In view of such occurrences, Vidovic informed journalists of their rights, of the lawfulness of excluding the public, of the most frequent ways of keeping the public away from hearings against legal provisions, as well as their obligations to be clear, vociferous and persistent in their fight for transparency and information from court proceedings, unless stated otherwise under the law.   

The importance of authentic reporting and of the correctness of all pieces of information published on a media platform was accentuated in the BIRN training.

Besides that, examples of blatant violations of the presumption of innocence by the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina were also presented.

Vidovic praised the past practices of BIRN BiH journalists, pointing out that analyses by legal professionals indicated that BIRN BiH reported in an objective and professional manner.

Journalists were informed of their rights and obligations related to publishing personal data about suspects, as well as the obligations of prosecutors’ offices and the media in case of the termination of certain proceedings that had been published previously.

The attorney dedicated part of the training to protection of privacy, as well as to journalists’ inviolable right to protect their sources.

She also pointed to the importance of multiple checks of information and models of reporting in which journalists avoid making assertions, minimizing the chances of being accused of defamation.

By organizing this training session, BIRN BiH rounded off the education of its staff in the field of improving reporting on war crimes, and preparing them for the monitoring of the judiciary and reporting on organized crime, terrorism and corruption. 

Denis Dzidic and Nedim Jahic spent three days in The Hague reporting live from the courtroom, giving interviews for international and Bosnian media outlets, interviewing Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and recording numerous reactions from relevant commentators before and after the verdict was pronounced.

A day before the verdict, on March 23, BIRN published an exclusive interview with Karadzic, Radovan Karadzic: ‘I Expect to be Acquitted’.

The interview had widespread impact: it was republished 259 times in other media outlets, including Britain’s The Guardian and Slovenia’s siol.net and was on the home pages of every respected news portal in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro.

The interview was read on BIRN BiH website 6, 113 times, a record readership for an article on the site.

For the first time ever, BIRN BiH had a live blog dedicated to the verdict announcement, which was followed by 2,000 unique visitors.

The live blog was also part of the Croatian Jutarnji list live blog.

The BIRN BiH Facebook and Twitter accounts were also fully dedicated to the live coverage, disseminating information from The Hague, but also from local reporters in Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Bratunac, Prijedor and Banja Luka.

In the week of Karadzic’s verdict, BIRN BiH’s Facebook page reached 107,000 people; its Twitter account had 35,772 impressions on published posts; and website www.justice-report.com had more than 30,000 unique visitors – all records for all BIRN BiH platforms.

BIRN BiH published eight exclusive reactions before and after the verdict on online platforms (live blog, Facebook and Twitter): Munira Subasic, from the Mothers of Srebrenica, Murat Tahirovic, from the association Victims of Genocide, Amor Masovic, Institute for Missing Persons, Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor, Peter Robinson, Karadzic’s legal adviser, Goran Petronijevic, Karadzic’s adviser, Momir Savcic, from the Organisation of Combatants of Republika Srpska, and Milorad Kojic, from the Republic Centre for War Crime Investigations.

During the time they spent in The Hague, Denis Dzidic and Nedim Hasic published the following articles, which had 30 republications in other media outlets:

Danas historijska presuda haškog tribunala

Praćenje izricanje presude iz glerije Tribunala

Hartmannova prisilno uvedena u Tribunal

Samo da živ dočeka presudu

Na Tribunalovom travnjaku

The BIRN BIH team also published the following articles while they were in The Hague:

Karadžić osuđen na 40 godina zatvora

Reakcije na presudu Radovanu Karadžiću

BIH ujedinjena u nezadovoljstvu

Dzidic and Hasic also gave live statements for the following media: klix.ba, media.ba, BH Radio, RSG radio, Antena radio, RTV Zenica, BHT, Radio 101 Prijedor, as well as speaking to Sky News and BBC News.

BIRN BIH journalists underwent the training sessions as the organisation began following the work of judiciary in the field of the rule of law in addition as well as reporting on war crimes and preparing a new modern media platform called detektor.ba.

The goal of the specialised training sessions was to modernise the journalists’ working tools and present the content produced by BIRN BiH to as many readers as possible, without compromising its journalistic ethics.   

Producers and editors from the leading media outlets in the region and community managers presented BIRN journalists with contemporary methods for creating and organising content with the aim of attaining a better outreach and having better communication with the audience.

The BIRN BiH team learned how to achieve achieving bigger presence and better positioning of their products on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as increasing readership on BIRN’s own media outlet.  

Gordana Igric, BIRN’s regional director, also held a training session for junior journalists on investigative journalism, accentuating the importance of fact-checking, objectivity and impartiality, as well as the rule of having at least two sources.