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The EU Awards for Investigative Journalism for Kosovo were presented on Monday, December 21, 2020, in an online event on Zoom. The four announced winners were awarded a total of 10,000 euros for stories published throughout 2019.

Their stories reported on the corrupt practices of the Kosovo government, on important environmental issues in the country, and shed more light on children born from wartime rape in the country.

The head of the EU delegation to Kosovo, Tomáš Szunyog, said all the awarded stories “were very interesting and covered some of the most pressing issues of the Kosovo society.

“Free, diverse and independent media are essential in any democratic society and are key to ensuring an informed and engaged citizenship. In order to achieve that, journalists should be able to exercise their function freely,” the ambassador added.

The jury was composed of chairman Xhelal Neziri, an experienced journalist skilled in broadcasting, storytelling, investigative reporting, news writing, and documentaries; Ervin Qafmolla, a Tirana-based journalist and communication specialist who leads the fact-checking unit at A2 CNN in Tirana; and Sefer Tahiri, a journalist with 15 years of experience who currently serves as a professor at the South East European University in Tetovo, North Macedonia.

Neziri, Qafmolla and Tahiri said they had a hard task choosing between the 14 shortlisted applications. Addressing the public, Neziri said evaluating the applications was “an honour both for myself and other members of the jury.

“Almost all [submitted stories] focused on important issues and uncovered previously unexplored areas that were interesting to read and learn about,” Neziri added.

He also added that the importance of investigative journalism in Kosovo and the region was huge, and requires “commitment, time, skills, and money.” He continued: “Democracy functions in the countries where citizens are well-informed.”

First award went to Serbeze Haxhiaj who works for Radio Television of Kosovo, RTK, and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network BIRN, for her investigation “Kosovo’s Invisible Children: The Secret Legacy of Wartime Rape.” This story for the first time revealed facts of concrete cases of children born from rape during the independence war in Kosovo.

More than two decades after the independence war, due to the stigma and prejudice against victims of sexual violence, it is still hard for rape survivors to speak publicly about children born as a result of rape. The negative perception of these women in the patriarchal environment of Kosovo has led in some cases victims to commit suicide.

The article provides evidence of how, because of the stigma that makes mothers feel ashamed to tell the truth, children born to rape by Serbian forces during the war in Kosovo have been kept secret, abandoned, given up for adoption or dumped in orphanages. In some cases, they even drowned. The few women who decided to keep these children a secret and raised them remain fearful of public exposure.

Haxhiaj said the award was an honour for her and an act of homage to the victims of sexual violence. “We are still seeing the consequences for these children that are invisible, and women who have survived sexual violence still fear being exposed,” she told the ceremony.

Second prize went to Leonida Molliqaj, a journalist and founder of the Center for Information, Criticism and Action, QIKA, through which a new media platform is being created where, for the first time in Kosovo, journalistic research will focus on gender equality.

Her piece, “Lack of food security in Kosovo threatens public health”, is the first research of its kind to provide readers with an accurate picture of the food security situation in Kosovo. Despite the legal regulations, the research highlighted violations of the right of access to safe food for the citizens of Kosovo, which is a result of the negligence of institutions.

The purpose of the research was to show the risk to public health that arises from the lack of proper control of food safety, as well as the accountability of the institutional chain for the damages caused.

Kreshnik Gashi and Afërdita Fejzullahu of BIRN Kosovo were awarded third place for their story, “Network of AAK family companies, concrete the highway Prishtina-Gjilan.”

This revealed the research of the BIRN TV show Justice in Kosovo, which explained how the family company of the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure, Rexhep Kadriu, was involved in the construction of the Prishtina-Gjilan highway, for which about 66 million euros are earmarked. The investigation has caused a great deal of controversy and the Kosovo Special Prosecutor’s Office launched a criminal investigation to uncover conflicts of interest in this activity. The case was recently entered in the register of targeted cases in the Special Prosecution.

The EU awards have the overall goal of celebrating and promoting the outstanding achievements of investigative journalists from the Western Balkan countries and Turkey, as well as improving the visibility of quality investigative journalism in these countries among the public.

The prizes are awarded through the EU-funded project, “Strengthening Quality News and Independent Journalism in the Western Balkans and Turkey”, in 2019, 2020, 2021 in EU candidate and potential candidate countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey, for investigative stories published between 2018 and 2020. In total, 63 awards will be awarded through a three-year period.

The awards in Bosnia and Herzegovina are coordinated by Balkan Investigative Regional Reporting Network, BIRN Hub, which also runs a regional consortium.

Disinformation, hate speech and discrimination continue to be major challenges in the digital space in the Western Balkans region, particularly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which caused a surge in fake news. In order to avoid those negative phenomena, digital media need adequate regulation, which ensures a high level of professionalism and objectivity, but at the same time prevents any form of censorship or influence on media independence or freedom of expression. Special contributors in re-shaping digital media regulation and self-regulation are international treaties, domestic legislation, and case law of various courts, including the European Court of Human Rights.

The debate “Case Law and Online Media Regulation in the Balkans” will be moderated by Montenegrin media expert and BIRN consultant Vuk Maras and will focus on existing national regulation and its effectiveness, as well as the question of ensuring a clear line of division between regulation and censorship. The debate should also discuss international standards and practices and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in this field. A special focus will also be put on the legal knowledge and capacities of media to uphold regulatory standards and obligations.

Panelists that will take part in the discussion include:

• Edina Harbinja – PhD in Media / Privacy Law (Senior Lecturer at Aston University / Aston Law School, UK)
• Lazar Sandev – Attorney at law (Law Office Filip Medarski, North Macedonia)
• Jelena Kleut – PhD in Communication Science (Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Serbia)
• Elvin Luku – PhD in Communication Science (CEO at Albanian Center MediaLook, Albania)
• Milan Radovic – Graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy (Program Director of Civil Alliance and Member of the Council of the Montenegrin Public Broadcaster)
• Snezana Trpevska – PhD in Sociological Sciences (Research Expert at RESIS, North Macedonia)

To join the second debate in a series of discussions on online media regulation with different stakeholders, organised as a part of the regional “Media for All” project, connect with us on the platform ZOOM on Tuesday, December 22, at noon CET.

Save the date and register HERE.

Prague Media Point 2020 is a virtual conference for journalists, media professionals, and scholars taking place on December 1-11, 2020 with workshops on December 12-13.

“This year’s program, under the theme ‘What’s Working’, will again take stock of success stories in the media industry – so important amid all the normal doom and gloom in the profession and society at large,” the organisers said.

“Held exclusively online, this year’s event presents a unique opportunity to learn from and engage with media leaders, no matter where you are,” they added.

The online conference will tackle issues of media freedom, the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, diversity issues, organised crime, China’s influence, and engaging audiences in long-term investigations.

Angelovski will speak at the session entitled: “How to Expose an Illegal Arms Business in Your Pajamas” on Friday December 11 at 5.25pm CET.

Angelovski was a member of a team of reporters that won the 2017 Global Investigative Journalism Conference’s citation of excellence 2017 Investigative Reporting Award with the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, and won second prize with the EU investigative journalism award in the Western Balkans and Turkey in 2016.

‘Counter-Archive’, an exhibition of drawings focused on the mass graves of Kosovo Albanians that were discovered in the Belgrade suburb of Batajnica after the Kosovo war, opens in Belgrade on Monday evening.

The ink-on-paper artworks are based on artist Vladimir Miladinovic’s research into the archive of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Miladinovic explored court proceedings related to the discovery of the mass graves in 2001 at the Serbian Interior Ministry Special Anti-Terrorist Unit’s training ground in the Belgrade neighbourhood of Batajnica.

The remains were found of 744 ethnic Albanians who had been killed in Kosovo and then moved to Batajnica in an attempted cover-up.

The opening of the exhibition on Monday will feature actors reading from court testimonies given by victims’ relatives and by people who participated in transporting and hiding the bodies.

The exhibition is being held as part of BIRN’s Balkan Transitional Justice granting scheme, which aims to encourage professionals in various fields to explore archives of courts that dealt with war crime trials in the Balkans, supported by the Matra Regional Rule of Law Programme.

“Through his drawings, Vladimir presents documents found in the ICTY archive in an innovative and creative way, thus contributing to the process of memorialisation and the re-examination of wartime heritage,” said Jovana Prusina, the coordinator of BIRN’s Balkan Transitional Justice project.

“This approach enables the artist to open up space for discussion and new interpretations of archival documents, and raises the question of how they can be used in creating alternative policies for conflict prevention,” Prusina added.

The cover-up operation to move the bodies of Kosovo Albanians to secret burial sites in Serbia was the subject of BIRN’s award-winning documentary, ‘The Unidentified’.

Miladinovic also held an exhibition of images based on former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladic’s diary in June 2020 in Belgrade.

‘Counter-Archive’ will be on display at the Endzio Gallery in Belgrade until November 25.

The report presents an overview of the main violations of digital rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia between January 31 and September 30, 2020, and makes a series of recommendations for authorities in order to curb such infringements during future social crises.

A first report, compiled by BIRN and which contained preliminary findings, showed a rise in digital rights violations in Central and Southeastern Europe during the pandemic, with over half of cases involving propaganda, disinformation or the publication of unverified information.

The global public health crisis triggered by the coronavirus exposed anew the failure of states around the world to provide a framework that would better balance the interests of safety and privacy. Instead, the report documents incidents of censorship, fake news, security breaches and concentration of information.

More than 200 pandemic-related violations tracked

At the onset of the pandemic, numerous violations of digital rights were observed – from violations of the privacy of persons in isolation to manipulation, dissemination of false information and Internet fraud.

BIRN and Share Foundation documented 221 violations in the context of COVID-19 during the eight-month monitoring period, the largest number coming during the initial peak of the pandemic in March and April – 67 and 79 respectively – before slowly declining.

The countries with the highest number of violations to date are Serbia, with 46, and Croatia, with 44.

The most common violation – accounting for roughly half of all cases – was manipulation in the digital environment caused by news sites that published unverified and inaccurate information, and by the circulating of incomplete and false data on social media.

This can be explained in large measure by the low level of media literacy in the countries of the region, where few people actually check the news and information provided to them, while the media themselves often publish unverified information.

The most common targets of digital rights violations were citizens and journalists. However, both of these groups were frequently also among the perpetrators.

Contact tracing apps: Useful or not? 

The debate about the use of contact-tracing apps as a method of combating the spread of COVID-19 was one of the most important discussions in Croatia and North Macedonia.

At the very beginning of the pandemic, the Croatian government led by the conservative Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, proposed a change to the Electronic Communications Act under which, in extraordinary situations, the health minister would request from telecommunications companies the location data of users.

Similarly, Macedonian health authorities announced they were looking to use “all tools and means” to combat the virus, with North Macedonia among the first countries in the Western Balkans to launch a contact-tracing app on April 13.

Developed and donated to the Macedonian authorities by Skopje-based software company Nextsense, the StopKorona! app is based on Bluetooth distance measuring technology and stores data locally on users’ devices, while exchanging encrypted, anonymised data relevant to the infection spread for a limited period of 14 days. According to data privacy experts, the decentralised design guaranteed that data would be stored only on devices that run the app, unless they voluntarily submit that data to health authorities.

Croatia launched its own at the end of July, but by late August media reports said the Stop COVID-19 app had been downloaded by less than two per cent of mobile phone users in the country. The threshold for it to be effective is 60 per cent, the reports said.

Key worrying trends mapped

Bosnia and Herzegovina saw a number of problems with personal data protection, free access to information and disinformation. In terms of disinformation, people were exposed to a variety of false and sometimes outlandish claims, including conspiracy theories about the origin of the coronavirus, its spread by plane and various miracle cures.

Conspiracy theories, like those blaming the spread of the virus on 5G mobile networks, flourished online in Croatia too. One person in Croatia destroyed their Wifi equipment, believing it was 5G.

In Hungary, fake news about COVID-19 arrived even before the virus itself, said journalist Akos Keller Alant, who monitored the digital environment in Hungary.

Several clickbait fake news sites published articles about COVID-19 victims a month before Hungary’s first confirmed case. The Anti-Cybercrime Unit of the Hungarian police arrested several people for spreading fake news, starting in early February when police raided the operators of a network of fake news sites.

In Kosovo, online media emerged as the biggest violators of digital rights by publishing unverified and false information as well as personal health information. Personal data rights were also violated by state institutions and public figures.

In Montenegro, the most worrying digital rights violations concerned privacy and personal data protection of those infected with the coronavirus or those forced to self-isolate.

The early days of the pandemic, when Montenegro was among the few countries that could claim to have kept a lid on the virus, was a rare moment of social and political consensus in the country about how to respond, said Tamara Milas of the Centre for Civic Education in Montenegro, an NGO.

The situation changed, however, when the government was accused of the gross violation of the right to privacy and the right to the protection of personal data.

Like its Western Balkan peers, North Macedonia was flooded with unverified information and claims shared online with regards the pandemic. Some of the most concerning cases included false claims about infected persons, causing a stir on social media.

In Romania, the government used state-of-emergency powers to shut down websites – including news and opinion sites – accused of spreading what authorities deemed fake news about the pandemic, according to BIRN correspondent Marcel Gascon, who monitors digital rights violations in Romania.

In Serbia, a prominent case concerned a breach of security in the country’s central COVID-19 database. For eight days, the login credentials for the database, Information System COVID-19, were publicly available on the website of a public health body.

In another incident, the initials, age, place-of-work and personal address of a person infected with the virus were posted on the official webpage of the municipality of Sid in western Serbia as well as on the town’s social media accounts.

In the report, BIRN and Share Foundation conclude that technology, especially in a time of crisis, should not be seen as the solution to complex issues, be that protection of health or upholding public order and safety. Rather, technology should be used to the benefit of citizens and in the interest of their rights and freedoms.

When intrusive technologies and regulations are put in place, it is hard to take a step back, particularly in societies with weak democratic institutions, the report states. Under such circumstances, the measures applied in one crisis for the protection of public health may one day be repurposed and used against other “social plagues”, ultimately leading to reduced human rights standards.

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To read the full report click here. For individual cases, check our regional database, developed together with the SHARE Foundation.

BIRN’s Transitional Justice Programme is supporting a project to create educational content based on archive materials from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, designed by an independent education specialist from Croatia, Tvrtko Pater.

The aim is to build critical thinking, legal understanding and human rights awareness among students in a region where the past is often misused for divisive political goals, and to provide teachers with the tools to foster discussion about complex and controversial topics in an engaging and depolarising way.

Pater was one of 20 people, including journalists, historians, artists and activists, who were awarded grants under BIRN’s Transitional Justice Programme to create work based on the archives of the UN tribunal in The Hague.

Pater used ICTY archive materials as his source for two sets of lesson plans for use in history, civic education or sociology classes, as well as case materials for war crime trial simulations that deal with the topics of the destruction of cultural heritage and sexual violence in conflict.

For one of the lesson plans, Pater focused on accusations against Bosnian Croat general Slobodan Praljak, who was acquitted of destroying the Old Mostar Bridge, a landmark Ottoman-era bridge in Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina but found guilty of other crimes and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Praljak took poison in the courtroom when the sentence was being read and died soon afterwards.

For the other lesson plan, Pater focused on the sexual violence allegations against Dragoljub Kunarac, the commander of a reconnaissance unit of the Bosnian Serb Army in the Foca area of Bosnia.

Kunarac was found guilty of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war – including torture, rape and enslavement – and sentenced to 28 years in prison.

Pater’s case materials for war simulations will be used from 2021 onwards at the Model International Criminal Court Western Balkans, MICC WeB, an educational project that simulates ICTY cases and verdicts for young participants.

“Thanks to the BIRN Transitional Justice Programme grant, the MICC WeB educational programme – with renewed educational materials about the destruction of cultural heritage and sexual violence in times of conflict – will continue to challenge and deconstruct the dominant, divisive war crime trial narratives currently existing in our respective countries; build critical thinking, and develop youth resilience to political instrumentalisation of transitional justice and history, as well as to nationalism,” Pater said.

The wartime history of the 1990s is either not taught in classrooms in the Western Balkans or taught from a one-sided, nationalist perspective.

Transitional Justice Programme coordinator Jovana Prusina said that the materials created by Pater are a great example of using the ICTY’s archives creatively.

“BIRN started its granting scheme aiming to encourage and create opportunity for journalists, researchers, activists and others to explore court archives, thus contributing to the reconciliation and memorialisation processes in the Balkans. Tvrtko’s project is a great example of that,” said Prusina.

“By creating such educational toolkit, many students will be able to learn more about the past from an early age and to participate in creating fact-based narratives about wartime history,” she added.

The MICC WeB educational programme has been implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia since 2014. Operating at the intersection of transitional justice, historical human rights education and civic education, it has brought together more than 400 high school students and 80 teachers from more than 50 schools to discuss and hold simulations of war crime trials.

Acting in teams of prosecution, defence, judges and media in week-long MICCWeB sessions, students investigate their respective legal cases, enhance their understanding and knowledge of transitional justice and international criminal law, and build bonds between their communities.

The lesson plans created in cooperation with BIRN can be found in the document section below.

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Download: MICCWeB Cases Selection and Procedure

Download: MICCWeB Lesson Plan – Cultural Heritage

Download: MICCWeB Lesson Plan – Sexual Violence in Conflict

The EU Awards for Investigative Journalism for North Macedonia were presented to the winners on Thursday at the Aleksandar Palace Hotel in Skopje.

“This award aims to recognise the specific work of investigative journalists during the year,” David Geer, Head of the EU Delegation in Skopje, said at the ceremony.

“It aims to promote both freedom and responsibility – freedom to investigate and write about issues of public concern without fear – fear of punishment or reprisals. Responsibility: because there is a responsibility on all journalists – and the investigative journalist in particular – to apply the highest professional and ethical standards in their work,” he added.

The jury comprising jury head Vesna Nikodinoska and jury members Milica Saric and Marina Kostova had a tough task evaluating the 11 shortlisted applications.

“We had great responsibility before us,” Nikodinoska said: “We received 11 stories that passed the first selection phase out of 24, and tried our best to be objective. All three stories have the most important characteristic of investigative journalism – digging deeper and under the surface.”

She added: “I encourage journalists to work on investigations, because investigative journalism in this era of pseudo-media is needed more than ever in our developing democracies.”

First prize this year went to the Investigative Reporting Lab Macedonia, IRL, for “Urban Assassins”, which the jury deemed a product of outstanding research.

“What was important for this story was a multi-disciplinary approach. Young directors, animators and most important young journalists all worked on this story. But cooperation with state institutions was also very important as was the reaction of citizens,” Saska Cvetkovska, from IRL, said.

Second prize went to Snezhana Lupevska Sozen, Miomir Serafinovic and Biljana Nikolovska for a justice-related investigation, “Murders in Kicevo – convicted for life and declared guilty for a murder he did not commit.”

“It was hard working on this story having in mind that it needed a lot of ‘digging’, contacts and traveling,” Serafinovic said after receiving the award.

“However, it is much harder for the prisoner for whom this story speaks, who is serving a life sentence, because despite all of our investigation and stories, we did not succeed in awakening the justice system to reconsider all the evidence we presented,” he added.

Third prize went to Petar Klincarski for “Denationalization stuck in corruption and incompetence of the institutions”.

“The process of denationalization, as you have seen, is full of inefficiency and the incompetence of institutions,” Klincarski said.

“There were indications of unlawful behaviour and misuse of power. What is most important is that there is no political will for solving open cases of denationalization and for clearing up suspicions of misbehaviour.”

The EU awards have the overall goal of celebrating and promoting the outstanding achievements of investigative journalists from the Western Balkan countries and Turkey, as well as improving the visibility of quality investigative journalism in these countries among the public.

The award for investigative journalism is awarded through the EU-funded project “Strengthening Quality News and Independent Journalism in the Western Balkans and Turkey” in 2019, 2020, 2021 in EU candidate and potential candidate countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey, for investigative stories published between 2018 and 2020. In total, 63 awards will be awarded through a three-year period.

The award in North Macedonia is coordinated by the Independent Trade Union of Journalists and Media Workers in North Macedonia, SSNM, while the regional consortium is led by Balkan Investigative Regional Reporting Network – BIRN Hub.