Tag: Serbia

BIRN Reports Win EU Investigative Journalism Awards

BIRN Serbia journalist Aleksandar Djordjevic win first prize in the EU awards for investigative journalism in Serbia, while the third prize went to BIRN’s Ivan Angelovski, Jelena Cosic, Petrit Collaku and Kreshnik Gashi.

Aleksandar Djordjevic’s report entitled ‘Pumping Out the Pit and the Budget’ was named the best investigative story in 2015 in the EU awards for investigative journalism on Tuesday.

Djordjevic’s story revealed that the public company Electric Power Industry of Serbia awarded a public tender for to pump flood water out of the most important mine in Serbia to an inexperienced consortium, increasing the cost of the whole operation.

After the investigation in January 2015, BIRN was publicly criticised by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and media that support his administration.

Third prize went to Ivan Angelovski, Jelena Cosic, Petrit Colaku and Kreshnik Gashi for a story revealing how a multi-million-dollar road construction contract was quietly handed to a consortium with little highway-building experience and linked to controversial Serbian businessman Zvonko Veselinovic. The story was produced as part of “A Paper Trail for Better Governance” programme, which is funded by Austrian Development Cooperatiion.

The president of the jury, a member of the Anti-Corruption Council, Miroslava Milenovic, stressed the importance of investigative journalism to the general public.

“If there were no investigative journalism, many important events in society, many cases of corruption and social neglect of public goods, the arrogance of the political and economic elite would stay hidden from the public,” said Milenovic.

The award for the best young investigative reporter went to journalists Snezna Djuric and Novak Grujic from the news site Whistle for their ‘Municipal Radar’ series, while RTV Vojvodina journalist Darko Sper scooped the second prize for his story about the trial of a banned neo-Nazi organisation called the National Formation.

 

BIRN Wins Investigative Reporting Award

BIRN journalist Aleksandar Dordjevic scooped first prize for the best investigative journalism story in Serbia’s print media.

The award was given by the Independent Journalists Association of Serbia, NUNS, and the US Embassy to Belgrade at a ceremony on Thursday, May 5.

The investigation, produced by BIRN Serbia and published in the magazine Vreme, revealed how the Belgrade Business School, under pressure from government officials, unlawfully lent 7 million euros to heavily indebted companies that were unlikely to repay the money.

The jury said the story raised important questions about corruption and impunity in Serbia.

US Ambassador to Serbia Kyle Randolph Scott told the ceremony: “Journalists in Serbia work in tough conditions. Investigative reporting requires non-stop work, particular attention to the facts, collecting data from different sources and often personal courage.”

The award for the best radio and television investigation went to Vera Aksentijevic, journalist at the public broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia. The prize for online media was secured by Dragana Peco, Stevan Dojcinovic and Atanas Cobaov from investigative portal KRIK – Crime and Corruption Reporting Network – for a series of articles about the Mayor of Belgrade.

This is the fourth time BIRN Serbia has scooped the award for best investigation, and this year BIRN journalists were shortlisted for two other stories.

Jelena Veljkovic, BIRN Serbia journalist, and Vladimir Kostic, from the Serbian Center for Investigative Journalism, were among the finalists for their investigation into how politician Bratislav Gasic awarded contracts to companies linked to his family while he was a mayor of Krusevac.

Ivan Angelovski, Petrit Colaku, Kreshnik Gashi and Jelena Cosic were shortlisted in the online media category for a story revealing how a multi-million-dollar road construction contract was quietly handed to a consortium with little highway-building experience and linked to notorious businessman Zvonko Veselinovic.

BIG DEAL: The Association should not be prioritized over rule of law

On Tuesday, April 19, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and Internews Kosova held a roundtable to launch and discuss the most recent publication by BIG DEAL,  a civic oversight initiative on the Kosovo-Serbia negotiations.

Three years since the ‘historic’ “First agreement on principles” was signed in Brussels by Ivica Dacic and Hashim Thaci, only four of sixteen agreements have been implemented.

On the other hand, the formation of the Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities poses challenges for Kosovo’s political stability, its rule of law, and for the credibility of the European Union, the BIG DEAL report argues.

“By making the dialogue their top priority, the EU and the US have constantly tolerated the weakness of democracy and the rule of law in Kosovo. Yet the damage inflicted on both as a consequence has risked to undo even the limited progress achieved in the dialogue so far,” said Bodo Weber of the Democratization Policy Council, the author of the report. “Therefore the US and the EU need to demonstrate full commitment to and respect for the constitutional and legal foundations of the state of Kosovo in the framework of the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue.”

The report, entitled “Awkward Juggling: Constitutional insecurity, political instability and rule of law in the Kosovo- Serbia dialogue” examines the way forward for the implementation of key agreements in the wake of the December ruling by Kosovo’s Constitutional Court on the general principles of the future Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities.

The report calls on the European External Action Service to “engage international experts on the topics of constitutional law, forms of positive discrimination in multi-ethnic polities and on local self-governance to participate in the process of drafting the Statute of the future Association/Community of Serb majority municipalities.”

Panelists, including the EU representative in Kosovo, Samuel Zbogar and Jelena Milic from the Center for Euro Atlantic Studies, also discussed the current stagnation with implementation of agreements in general.

“It is unfortunate that, similar to six months ago when we presented our comprehensive monitoring report, only four of 16 reached agreements have been fully implemented,” said Faik Ispahiu, Executive Director of Internews Kosova. “Five years after the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue began, Kosovo and Serbia are refusing to recognize one another’s diplomas. The draft law on cadastre has been blocked for two years with no progress, and Kosovars still don’t have an operating telephone code despite the fact that not one, but two agreements have been signed about this very topic.”

Samuel Zbogar, EU representative in Kosovo stated that their job was to facilitate the process and believed normalization was in Kosovo’s interest.

However, we warned that with the political situation in Kosovo, there is a need to build wider political consensus around the dialogue.

“Although it has been plainly stated by members of the Serbian government that their top priority is the formation of the Association/Community, this should not be the condition for the implementation of other agreements that were signed long before the 19 April 2013 agreement,” Xharra said. “The fair implementation tempo should push for the agreements to be chronologically implemented: those that were signed first should be fully implemented first.”

Moreover, said BIRN Kosovo Director Jeta Xharra, EU and US diplomats need to send clear signals to both Prishtina and Belgrade that the implementation of all other pending agreements is just as important as the one on the Association/Community.

BIG DEAL is a platform for civic oversight of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue led by BIRN Kosovo, Internews Kosova and BIRN Serbia. Members of BIG DEAL include the Advocacy Center for Democratic Culture (ACDC) of North Mitrovica. The Belgrade-based Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, and the Berlin-based Democratization Policy Council.

“Our civic oversight initiative has brought progress,” said Tanja Maksic, Program Coordinator of BIRN Serbia.

“We as BIG DEAL have demanded that delegations of Serbia and Kosovo bring down the cost of travel because it was costing a fortune for people to cross the border from one neighbour to another – today, I am glad this cost has come down significantly,” said Maksic.

BIRN Serbia Launches Government Performance Report

Much-needed reforms are still being delayed and persistent problems such as corruption have yet to be tackled, says the latest Government Performance Report from BIRN Serbia.

BIRN Serbia’s newly-published report analyses developments in the economy, the fight against corruption and the education and health sectors under Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s government from 2014 to the announcement of early elections in 2016.

The report shows that reduced wages and pensions caused stagnation in consumer spending, unemployment remained high, and economic reform has been much slower than promised.

Serbia is still suffering from widespread corruption and the government has had limited impact on the problem, while convictions for corruption at the highest levels are still lacking, the report says.

The government’s time in office was marked by serious protests by education workers, while plagiarism scandals involving senior state officials have yet to be unresolved.

One of the biggest problems in healthcare relates to the financing of the health system. The anti-corruption struggle in the healthcare sector has only been partially successful, while access to healthcare is still not at a satisfactory level.

The full report is available at Mera Vlade.

OSCE: Political Influence Undermines Serbia’s Prosecution

The way that Serbia’s State Prosecutorial Council is run raises concerns because it allows political influence on its election procedure, the OSCE Mission in Serbia told BIRN Serbia.

The OSCE Mission in Belgrade has told BIRN Serbia that progress isn’t possible in the existing constitutional and legal framework, and recommended removing opportunities for political influence during the appointment of prosecutors and judges.

“The State Prosecutorial Council should be the body that protects the independence of the prosecution,” the OSCE said.

“The State Prosecutorial Council is responsible for the selection of prosecutors. However, the structure of the Council allows political influence on the election procedure,” it added.

BIRN Serbia published two reports in December last year and January this year showing that prosecutors are elected on political rather than professional criteria.

Commenting on these reports, the OSCE Mission said that to have people on the State Prosecutorial Council who are not prosecutors was unacceptable.

Serbian PM Repeats Criticism of BIRN Investigation

Serbian premier Aleksandar Vucic said he stood by his claim that BIRN lied in an investigation into a government contract, but insisted that he never describes independent media as ‘foreign mercenaries’.

Vucic said on Monday that he was right to criticise the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network for its article last year alleging that a contract to clear flood water from Serbia’s Tamnava mine was awarded to a firm without prior experience of such work.

Asked about calling BIRN “liars” because of the article, Vucic said that he still has the same opinion about the investigation, but he may have used inappropriate language.

“Should I use the word ‘liars’? I suppose not. It is inappropriate for me as prime minister to use that word, but in essence, I did not said anything that is not true,” Vucic said in an interview with Serbian news portal Insajder.

Insajder journalist Irena Stevic asked Vucic to clarify what exactly was inaccurate in BIRN’s article, but he said he could not remember the details of the report.

However he said that the company awarded the contract to pump out the Tamnava mine, Energotehnika – Juzna Backa, lost about 1.5 million euros, which should prove there was no corruption.

Vucic said that he does not believes that he is responsible for attacks on independent media outlets by privately-owned pro-government media such as the tabloid Informer, Pink TV and Belgrade’s local television station Studio B.

“I think I went through the worst lynching. I don’t think I should answer for something that someone says in private media,” Vucic said.

Asked why foreign donations to independent media are depicted as anti-Serbian by pro-government outlets, which have also described independent journalists as traitors, Vucic said that he does not make that kind of accusation.

“You will not hear a story about treason and foreign mercenaries from me… that is simple not my vocabulary. I think those kind of qualifications belong to the past,” he said.

Insajder recently reported that over the past 15 years, the EU has given the Serbian government 2.6 billion euros in grants, but only gave Serbian media outlets 35 million euros during the same period.

But Vucic responded that the EU grants did not represent a major part of the state’s income.
“That kind of money is really small for the state… It is less than one per cent of the annual budget,” he said.

Since BIRN published its Tamnava investigation last year, it has unsuccessfully been trying to obtain information from Serbia’s state electricity provider, EPS, on the exact costs of pumping the water out of mine and how much money was paid to Energotehnika – Juzna Backa by the state.

BIRN requested EPS’s invoice for the service, as well documents from Energotehnika – Juzna Backa, on February 3, 2015.

EPS has never replied, and as a result has had to pay two fines of 160 euros and 1,500 euros imposed by the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance.

BIRN Bolsters Social Media Expertise

Communication officers from across the BIRN Network gathered in Serbia’s capital on February 23-24 for an intensive training session focused on social media.

BIRN Hub organised the two-day training programme for its six communications officers as part of its focus on staff capacity building, as well as improving the overall output of BIRN’s publications for its international audiences.

Developments in social media and technology were on the agenda, alongside ways to maximize the use of advertising tools, audience targeting strategies, community building and improving the overall digital experience for BIRN’s audiences.

The training was also an opportunity for the country-specific communications officers to share information and experiences face-to-face, rather than via online portals as is common in a Network spanning multiple countries.

Attendees were also able to discuss the Network’s future growth and how they plan to adapt their social media and digital strategies for the future.

BIRN Hub, as a secretariat of the Network, is tasked with offering assistance to its members, including by developing editorial, digital and other relevant skills. The Network has identified a need to support its members by building their capacities and management skills in order to ensure long-term sustainability.

As part of its investment in social media skill development, BIRN Hub will be organising monthly training sessions for its communication officers, aimed at fostering a cohesive approach across all five regions in the Network – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia.

 

‘Soft Censorship’ Rife in Serbian Media, BIRN Report

Government pressure, state funding for favoured outlets and self-censorship have all contributed to a worsening in Serbia’s media landscape, a BIRN media report says.

State funding for favoured media outlets, a generally poor economic situation and self-censorship among journalists pose a real threat to objective public information and make the outlook for the Serbian media worse year by year, a BIRN Serbia report entitled “Soft censorship, Changes in media sector – from bad to worst”, issued on Thursday, writes.

Tanja Maksic, BIRN Serbia’s main researcher in the project, defines “soft censorship” as “hidden control”, and says it arises mainly from non-transparent and selective state funding of certain media accompanied by punishment of those that defy government control.

“The authorities use official state funding to reward obedient media and punish those that are critical,” Maksic said, adding that the phenomenon feeds “clientelistic relationships” in which the media become addicted to and dependent on state-sourced finance.

According to the report, “soft censorship” runs from misuse of public funds to abuse of regulatory and inspection powers and various tax incentives granted arbitrarily by the state.

The long-awaited privatization of the media in Serbia has not brought freedom to the press, since only 34 of an initial 70 state-owned media outlets found new owners, the report says.

“Out of that [34], almost half are in direct or indirect connection to the ruling parties,” the report says.

The government’s separate treatment of “suitable” and unsuitable media and journalists, plus precarious working conditions and low pay all contribute to the phenomenon of self-censorship.

The BIRN report refers to a recent survey of the sociologist Srecko Mihailovic “From Journalists to Labourers, Precarious Work and Life”, in which 70 per cent of questioned journalists said self-censorship among journalists was widespread. Only 5 per cent disagreed.

The BIRN Serbia press conference for the report was attended by colleagues and partners from the region, including Aleksandar Trifunovic, editor of BUKA magazine from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Daliborka Uljarevic from the Montenegrin Civil Education Center and Sasa Lekovic, president of Croatian Journalists Association.

Comparing the “soft censorship” experiences of the four countries, they agreed that political influence on the media remained strong and that self-censorship was a serious problem.

Lekovic said the media in Croatia had much the same problems as in Serbia, stressing that there is no real difference between “soft” censorship and censorship.

“It is all censorship. You cannot be half-dead,” Lekovic said, adding that despite EU membership, media freedom in the country had not truly progressed.

“The EU deals with media freedoms only declaratively. Everything is down to the national government,” Lekovic said, adding that Croatia’s new government appeared hostile toward media freedoms.

All the panelists agreed that the media in Serbia are facing the strongest pressure of all four countries.

“Only Macedonia is in a worse situation in the region,” Slobodan Georgiev, BIRN Serbia journalist, added.

This debate has been organized with the financial assistance of the project South East European Media Observatory, supported by the European Union. The contents of this event are the sole responsibility of BIRN and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

 

Trust Slipping in Balkan Police, TV Show Says

People are losing trust in the police in the Western Balkans, a special TV show broadcast by the regional television network N1 Info channel in cooperation with BIRN Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Kosovo concluded.

The TV show was based on research conducted within the framework of “Western Balkans Pulse for Police Integrity and Trust,” a project of which BIRN Serbia is part.

According to the research results, a majority of citizens think their police forces are corrupt. In their communications with BIRN Serbia, experts said people’s negative perception of the police was based on their everyday contact with police officers. Many people perceive them as uneducated, arrogant and inconsiderate.

Other factors in Serbia include a number of affairs and scandals that surfaced involving the Ministry of Interior. These include last year’s dismissal of five heads of police directorates with no explanation provided as to the reasons for this action.

More information find at http://pointpulse.net/activities/affairs-are-decreasing-the-citizens-trust-in-police/. 

Serbian Media Cover Fight against Corruption Poorly

Two years ago, when an action plan for the implementation of the country’s anti-corruption strategy was adopted in Serbia, media reported on this topic superficially, without deeper analysis and uncritically, according to a newly-published media content analysis by Tanja Maksic from BIRN Serbia.

At the presentation of the Alternative Report on the Implementation of the National Strategy for Combating Corruption, Maksic presented her analysis of articles devoted to this topic.

The average report published in the print media was short and factual, relying on officials and their agenda, and mostly positive when it came to anti-corruption measures, she said.

“There were no actors from civil society in the articles who could contribute to a more complete presentation of the theme to the public, especially because critical notes are coming from this part of society,” explained Maksic.

The Alternative Report was prepared by BIRN Serbia, the Belgrade Center for Security Policy and the Association of Prosecutors of Serbia as part of the project “Strengthening of External Oversight in the Implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy”.