Marija Ristic

Marija Ristic was the executive director of Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, a network of seven non-governmental organisations promoting freedom of speech, human rights and democratic values in Southeast and Central Europe. Ristic oversaw the activities and communications within the Network and represented it publicly.

As regional director, Ristic also led the BIRN Hub, which coordinates the BIRN network, dealing with editorial, training, operations and development, as well as developing, fundraising for and coordinating core regional projects. She was also the editor-in-chief for the Network.

Ristic started working for BIRN in 2011 as a journalist, contributing to the regional Balkan Transitional Justice programme. Topics related to war crimes, dealing with the past and human rights have been at the core of her professional development.

In 2015, she produced the award-winning documentary ‘The Unidentified’.

Under her leadership, BIRN won numerous awards, including the European Press Prize, while the Network expended its coverage beyond the Balkans – to Central and South Europe. As a director, Ristic in particular focused on development of digital rights and tech programme, empowerment of local media through capacity building and citizens’ engagement and expansion of human rights focused programmes.

In 2019, Ristic won Press Freedom Award from the Reporters Without Borders.

She graduated magna cum laude from the Geneva Academy for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, the University of Geneva and the University of Belgrade. She was a fellow at the Free University Berlin and Columbia University New York and received numerous awards and scholarships from the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, the OSCE, the Zoran Djindjic Foundation and the Research Council of Norway. She speaks Serbo-Croatian, English and German and lives between Sarajevo, Belgrade and Berlin.

Maida Selmanovic

Maida joined BIRN Hub in January 2008 as a Financial Officer based in Sarajevo. Maida is responsible for cash flow management, monitoring daily financial operations, reviewing financial data and preparing monthly and annual reports as well as accountancy and auditing and overall communication with other departments and the staff of BIRN.

Her educational background is in economics, and she has worked for two and half decades in international commercial business, finance, accounting and administration. She has attended different trainings related to office management, administration and project related courses.

Maida studied at the University of Economic of Tourism in Sarajevo. She speaks Bosnian and English.

New BIRN Board Meets in Belgrade

After the election of new Board members in November 2011, BIRN’s new Board and Steering Committee met for the first time in Belgrade from July 6 to July 8.

The new board is composed of Tim Judah, author and Balkan correspondent for the Economist, Wolfgang Petritsch, Austria’s Permanent Representative to the OECD, Steve Crawshaw, international advocacy director at Amnesty International, Stefan Lehne, former Austrian diplomat and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Europe in Brussels, and Per Bymon.

Previously head of Humanitarian Assistance in the Swedish SIDA (Swedish International Development Agency), he is now secretary general of Swedish Radio and Television’s humanitarian foundation, Radiohjälpen.

Ana Petruseva, representative of BIRN members, previously a long-time president of the board, also now joins the board.

The Board was presented with BIRN’s organisational structure, its on-going charitable and commercial programmes, and the organisation’s current success as well as plans for the future.

BIRN’s Statute was put before the members for consideration and, following further input from the team, will be finalised by the end of September.

“It was important for Board members to understand the depth and breadth of what BIRN is, and also to see that each of the local BIRNs can do different things,” Judah, the president of BIRN’s Board, said.

“It was also helpful for people from the local BIRNs to get together and understand what everyone else is doing and share experiences, as well as discuss how to exploit the network’s strength for their mutual benefit,” he added.

BIRN’s staff used the opportunity of the meeting to vote for a new visual identity for the whole organisation, as well as on the new layout of the organisation’s website.

The new visual identity and website will be implemented by the end of the year.

Local BIRN Directors concluded that an internal exchange of personnel should be put into practice, so that BIRN staff members can become better acquainted with their colleagues’ work.

It was also decided that in 2013, the next BIRN annual meeting should be held for the whole organisation.

Balkan Transitional Justice a Hit on Facebook

In only three months, Balkan Transitional Justice (BTJ), a regional initiative of BIRN HUB, has acquired over 6,500 Facebook fans across four different pages.

BTJ aims to inform the public about progress made in overcoming the violent past by addressing topics of regional reconciliation. Balkan Transitional Justice has four fan pages on Facebook – in English (Balkan Insight’s Transitional Justice), BCMS (Balkanska tranziciona pravda), Albanian (Drejtësia Tranzicionale në Ballkan), and Macedonian (Балканска транзициска правда).

The most popular of the four has been the joint Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian fan page with nearly 2,000 fans.

The Albanian fan page was launched in May and 1,545 people have already “liked” it. Both the English and the Macedonian versions have nearly 1,500 fans.

The publication of daily news and analyses by the regional BTJ team began in March 2012 and is composed of six journalists, three translators, and proofreaders. Since then, the BTJ website has published over 700 original articles in English that were translated into Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian, Albanian, and Macedonian.

The BTJ archives currently contain over 2,800 news pieces, analyses, interviews, profiles and background stories in English and the languages spoken in the former Yugoslavia, except Slovenian.

The success of the BJT project on Facebook demonstrates that issues of transitional justice are of great concern and interest to the local public.

Radio Launch: Regional Transitional Justice

Balkan Investigative Reporting Regional Network (BIRN) is launching a new monthly regional radio programme about transitional justice in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Serbia, titled Putevi pravde in Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian, Rrugët e Drejtësisë in Albanian and По патот на правдата in Macedonian [Paths of Justice in English].

The monthly 10-minute-long radio programme is available for rebroadcast in Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Albanian, and Macedonian every first Monday of the month. It is available online free of charge and it is sent out to over 800 radio stations in the former Yugoslav countries and abroad.

 

The radio programme focuses on the most up-to-date news and information on issues such as war crime trials, criminal justice efforts and regional co-operation and much more.

 

The first programme addresses the current inter-ethnic tensions in Macedonia. It also features prominent figures of Anti-Fascists organizations in the former Yugoslavia and their views on the proposed rehabilitation of Draza Mihailovic, the WW2 Chetnik leader.

 

It also examines why Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are still far off from signing a protocol about the cooperation of their Prosecutor’s offices.

 

In the last part, you can listen to what the citizens in the former Yugoslav countries think about coming to terms with the past in the region.

 

The radio programme is a free-of-charge product of BIRN as part of the newly launched regional project Balkan Transitional Justice, a two-year multi-media project funded by the European Union and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

 

The aim of the project is to improve the general public knowledge about transitional justice and contribute to the difficult process of coming to terms with the Balkan violent past.

 

It consists of a team of six journalists and a language team that bring daily news and analyses on transitional justice topics in the regional languages: Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Macedonian and in English.

 

The project’s website was official launched as part of Balkan Insight on March 5, 2012.

 

The participants in the 2012 Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence have been selected.

Here are their names, listed by country in alphabetical order:

Aleksandra Bogdani, Albania

 

Eldin Hadzovic, Bosnia

 

Dimiter Kenarov, Bulgaria

 

Ana Benacic, Croatia

 

Arbana Xharra, Kosovo

 

Aleksandar Manasiev, Macedonia

 

Saska Cvetkovska, Macedonia

 

Samir Kajosevic, Montenegro

 

Maria–Sorana Stanescu, Romania

 

Miodrag Sovilj, Serbia

 

We would like to congratulate the winners, and to thank all applicants.

 

We would also like to encourage candidates who were not successful to consider applying again next year.

 

Competition for the top ten places was exceptionally high, and the judges were impressed by the overall quality of entries. The International Selection Committee consists of six permanent members from the media community in the Balkans, Austria and Germany, as well as one annual member, who is an expert on this year’s Fellowship theme – communities.

 

This year’s programme consists of two seminars, the international research of fellows’ own reporting project, mentoring and editorial followed by the world-wide promotion and syndication of fellows’ articles.

 

Second Presentation of Balkan Transitional Justice in Belgrade

On Friday, March 10, Gordana Igric and members of the Balkan Transitional Justice team presented the newly launched programme to representatives from the OSCE, Serbian Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor, and the director of the Serbian news agency BETA, Ljubica Markovic.

Gordana Igric, BIRN regional director, introduced the goals of the programme and pointed towards her personal experience with transitional justice issues. “I was a war reporter in the Balkans in the 1990s and I experienced many of the problems we are talking about now first-hand. So this project is personally very close to me and my past,” said Igric.

 

Anisa Suceska-Vekic, the director of BIRN Bosnia and manager of the Transitional Justice project, explained that the idea behind the project was to create a regional initiative of all BIRN offices and correspondents across the region that would participate in tackling post-war issues.

 

The presentation of the project was followed by a discussion among the participants. Ljubica Markovic noted that the project was very useful for BETA, given that the news agency is unable to follow war crimes and similar issues on a regular basis, mainly due to a lack of financial and human resources.

 

She also said that when BETA covers issues concerning war crimes or victims of war in their articles it “always prompts strong reactions among the public”.

 

“Even I sometimes find myself thinking that we have had enough of all these wars and their consequences. But things have to be told in their entirety in order to move on,” Markovic added.

 

Jasna Sarcevic-Jankovic, from the Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor in Serbia emphasised a general lack of interest of the younger generations in war crimes.

 

The project’s coordinator, Jessie Hronesova, said that the project’s aims were to reach beyond reporting on war crime trials. “We aim to show the large scale of problems any transitional country is going through, which is not only the transition from wars but also from communism.”

 

Ivan Jovanovic and Jelena Stevancevic, legal advisors on war crimes of the OSCE Mission to Serbia have emphasised how important it is to organize regional initiatives that bring people of various backgrounds together and in this way foster mutual understanding and fight prejudice. “I congratulate you on launching such a project that has a regional dimension,” Jovanovic said.

 

Balkan Transitional Justice is a two-year multi-media project funded by the European Commission and Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, bringing daily news and analyses in English and the regional languages: Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian.

 

The project’s website was official launched as part of Balkan Insight on March 5, 2012.

 

A radio programme will be launched in early May and a series of documentary films will follow in fall 2012.

Presentation for Serbian NGOs about the new programme “Balkan Transitional Justice”

On Wednesday, 7 March, BIRN HUB organized a meeting with Serbian NGOs in order to promote the new regional programme “Balkan Transitional Justice” which focuses on transitional justice issues in the post-Yugoslav region.

The meeting was among others attended by BIRN regional director, Gordan Igric, the programme manager, Anisa Suceska-Vekic, programme editor Andrea Doder and representatives from the Humanitarian Law Center and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.

 

The aim of the meetings was to inform local non-governmental organizations about the new programme and establish future partnerships.

 

Natasa Kandic, Jelena Grujic and Natasa Govedarica from the Humanitarian Law Center shared their experience about monitoring war crimes prosecutions in the Balkan region.

 

Natasa Kandic pointed towards several challenges the project will have to address, such as how to present stories that would be balanced, interesting for the audience and at the same time contributing to knowledge about transitional justice.

 

Sonja Biserko from the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights stressed the importance of showing contemporary issues in the Balkans within a political and historical context.

 

“Balkan Transitional Justice“ is a regional programme funded by the European Commission and the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland, whose website as part of Balkan Insight was launched on Monday, 5 March.

 

The aim of the programme is to ensure a timely, impartial and balanced flow of information about issues of transitional justice in the Balkan region, such as war crimes, lustration, reparations, regional cooperation, truth-seeking initiatives, missing persons and refugees, among others.

 

In the first stage, the project consists of online news reports covering local issues related to war crimes and other transitional justice problems. Radio and TV output will follow later in the year.

 

Articles on the website are available in four languages: English, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin, Albanian, and Macedonian.

 

The Balkan Transitional Justice programme is organizing another presentation tomorrow for representatives of international organizations and the judiciary.

 

As the programme is primarily focused on a local audience, it is planning to hold a series of similar presentations across the region in order to promote its goals and increase public awareness of transitional justice issues.

 

More than 100 Applications for the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence Received

This year’s competition for the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence is closed as of today.

Meanwhile, busy BIRN team-members have launched preparations for the selection process which will start this Wednesday, March 7th.

In the upcoming days, we will announce the exact number of eligible applications received per country.

Members of the Selection Committee will begin the process of choosing the journalists to participate in this year’s programme, who will become members of a growing network for journalistic excellence in Balkans.

This year’s programme consists of two seminars, the international research of fellows’ own reporting project, mentoring and editorial followed by the world-wide promotion and syndication of fellows’ articles.

The International Selection Committee consists of six permanent members from the media community in the Balkans, Austria and Germany, as well as one annual member, who is an expert on this year’s Fellowship theme – communities.

The results of the Committee’s deliberations will be announced on March 29th on our website fellowship.birn.eu.com, while all candidates will be individually informed about the results of the fourth annual competition for the Balkan Fellowship.

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, alongside partners – the Robert Bosch Stiftung and ERSTE Foundation, would like to thank all of the applicants for their interest in the programme and wishes them the very best of luck.

 

Balkan Transitional Justice Launches

The newly created Balkan Transitional Justice programme is launching its website as part of Balkan Insight today, March 1.

Balkan Insight’s Transitional Justice site provides news, analyses, interviews, and investigations on transitional justice issues in the Balkan region.

The aim of the programme is to stimulate a healthy public dialog and further the understanding of transitional justice issues by providing timely, balanced and impartial information.

The main journalistic interests of BTJ are in covering past human rights violations such as war crime trials, regional cooperation on criminal issues, the current situation of refugees and IDPS, progress regarding missing persons, and truth-seeking initiatives.

The articles are published on our website in English, Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin and Macedonian.

The programme is currently expanding its partnership network in order to disseminate its input and increase its impact. The programme’s radio production will start in May 2012.

We can also be found on our Facebook page, followed on Twitter and readers can subscribe to our newsletter on the homepage.

Created as a regional programme of BIRN HUB and supervised by BIRN’s regional director Gordana Igric, this project is funded by the European Commission and Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Balkan Transitional Justice team consist of six journalists placed in the regional capitals, three translators, and five proofreaders.

Members of the BTJ Journalistic Team are journalists Boris Pavelić from Croatia, Siniša-Jakov Marušić from Macedonia, Marija Ristić from Serbia, Milena Milošević from Montenegro, Denis Džidić from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Fatmir Aliu from Kosovo, translators Oto Oltvanji from Serbia, Emica Niami from Macedonia, and Belinda Vrapi from Albania and proofreaders Nadira Korić, Lidija Bakarić, Faton Osmani, and Tamara Chausidis.

The English editor of the programme is Andrea Doder, the managing editor is Ana Petruseva, it is managed by Anisa Suceska-Vekic and coordinated by Jessie Hronesova.

 You can explore the website here: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/page/balkan-transitional-justice-home