Month: February 2021

Child Pornography Offences Increase in Romania During Pandemic

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism, DIICOT said on Friday that there has been an increase in the detected production and distribution of pornographic material featuring minors, as freedom of movement limitations bring about by the pandemic led to a dramatic increase in online interactions.

“The number of pornographic materials with minors detected by prosecution bodies and even by the private sector is on the rise, which demands that we concentrate our efforts in combating this kind of criminal activity,” the DIICOT said in its report for 2020.

The report differentiates between content produced with the participation of the perpetrators and that which has been “self-generated” by minors themselves.

Material self-generated material became more prevalent in 2020, when a growing number of offenders convinced or blackmailed the victims into filming or photographing themselves engaging in obscene acts. In most of such instances, the minors were approached online.

Prosecutors also observed “an upsurge” in the use of livestreaming services among minors who produce pornography motivated by the “significant financial gains” they obtain.

In February 2021, DIICOT has already reported five child pornography cases.

On February 2, a suspect was arrested in the eastern county of Buzau for allegedly approaching a female minor through a social network from whom he obtained several pictures and videos of a sexual nature that he then distributed online.

On February 11, another suspect was apprehended in the north of Romania on charges of blackmail, child pornography and corrupting a child. According to prosecutors, between August 2020 and February 2021 the suspect recruited an unspecified number of minors online to send pornographic content to him.

The suspect then used the images as tools of blackmail to threaten the children to supply him with more material, prosecutors alleged. He has been remanded in custody for 30 days and will face trial.

PiS-Friendly High Courts in Poland Conspire to Restrict Access to Public Info

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The chief justice of Poland’s Supreme Court, a presidential appointee, has asked the government-controlled Constitutional Tribunal to declare key elements of the law on access to public information as unconstitutional, which experts warn could bring about an end to government transparency.

Since being elected in 2015, the nationalist-populist Law and Justice (PiS) government has suffered a series of scandals – some uncovered through the use of transparency laws – concerning the appointments of relatives and friends of PiS politicians to public office, as well as the favouring of friendly foundations, media and other institutions in the distribution of public funds.

Observers speculate that another intended effect of the request could be to shield from media scrutiny certain state companies, which PiS is increasingly using to achieve political ends, such as taking control of critical media.

It emerged Wednesday, via a personal tweet from Miroslaw Wroblewski, a lawyer and director of the constitutional law team at the office of the Polish Ombudsman, that Malgorzata Manowska, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, had formally requested on February 16 that the Constitutional Tribunal assess the constitutionality of several aspects of Poland’s law governing access to public information.

Manowska, who was appointed to her position last year by the PiS-allied President Andrzej Duda, claimed in her submission that the law doesn’t specify enough the scope of concepts such as “public authorities”, “other entities performing public tasks”, “persons exercising public functions” and “the relation to the exercise of public functions”. As a consequence, she wrote, the concepts are stretched too broadly in an illegal manner, meaning too many public bodies and officials are held accountable.

The chief justice also challenged the obligation of state bodies to provide information about public officials, “including their personal data and information belonging to their private sphere”, which she argued is both unconstitutional and contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. Yet this could also refer, potentially, to information about supplementary sources of income or conflicts of interest that exist among the official’s family.

Wroblewski took to social media to comment on Manowska’s request: “I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ll remember this date [February 16] as the end of government transparency”.

Krzysztof Izdebski, from the open-government watchdog Fundacja ePanstwo, anticipates that public institutions which have been taken to court by journalists for not providing requested public information on time will now start filing requests to suspend their trials until the Constitutional Tribunal rules. “This request is also meant to have a chilling effect on citizens and journalists,” Izdebski commented.

Manowska was nominated to the Supreme Court by the National Council of the Judiciary, KRS, a body whose independence from the ruling party has been questioned by both the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Polish Supreme Court itself. Although an experienced judge and former dean of the National School of Judiciary and Public Prosecution, she has also served as a deputy justice minister under Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, raising concerns about her independence from him and PiS.

In turn, the Constitutional Tribunal was the first body in the justice system that PiS sought to establish political control over when it took power, while its President, Julia Przylebska, is known to be a personal friend of PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Slovenia Criticised for Suspending National News Agency’s Funding

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Slovenian Government Communication Office, UKOM, has faced strong criticism after it announced this week that it will suspend payment for the services provided by the Slovenian Press Agency, STA in January – the second time it has suspended the state-funded STA’s payments in recent months.

“This is the most blatant example of the goals and strategies of [Prime Minister] Janez Jansa to get all the media under control,” prominent Slovenian investigative journalist Blaz Zgaga told BIRN.

“The Slovenian Press Agency is actually the backbone of the Slovenian media system because it covers many events in politics and society that other media do not cover… everything depends on the STA,” Zgaga said.

He added that if the agency falls under political control, right-wing premier Jansa will have a greater influence on all the other media that depend on the material provided and events organised by the STA.

UKOM told BIRN on Thursday that it has not stopped funding the STA but it has only “refused to pay the invoice that STA Director Bojan Veselinovic sent to UKOM for reasons unknown to us”.

It said that “as of 31 December 2020 all the contracts concluded between UKOM and STA expired”.

Veselinovic has argued that the budget allocations for funding the STA had already been set out by the government for this year, regardless of whether a contract with the founder has been signed or not, and that all required documents are always available to the government and relevant supervisory bodies.

UKOM also told BIRN that it rejects “any bizarre allegations of anyone ever exerting pressure on STA editors or journalists”.

It said it had asked STA director Veselinovic to “publish the names of the officials who are believed to have pressured the editors or journalists, because that would be unacceptable. So far, we have not received any reply.”

UKOM also refused to pay monthly instalments for the public service provided by the STA for October and November.

Veselinovic responded by arguing that the budget allocations for funding the STA had already been set out by the government for this year, regardless of whether a contract with the founder has been signed or not, and that all required documents are always available to the government and relevant supervisory bodies.

The Slovene Association of Journalists, DNS, the European Alliance of News Agencies, EANA, and the International Press Institute, IPI, voiced support for STA.

“The latest denial of funding of STA by the Slovenian government is yet another politically-motivated attempt to destabilize the financial footing of the country’s press agency. Payment should be resumed immediately,” the IPI wrote on Twitter.

BIRN asked UKOM to respond to its critics’ accusations but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.

STA employees said in a statement on Thursday that the UKOM’s decision is another “attempt to dismantle and destroy” the agency and that they “cannot agree to any diktats about how and what to report”.

They also said that a group of individuals, about whom it was “clear at first glance which political party they belong to”, have even announced the establishment of an alternative national news agency “which would be more Slovenian and objective than the STA”.

Last month Slovenian media reported the establishment of the new National Press Agency, NTA, whose founders are close to the Jansa’s right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party, SDS.

Zgaga said that “we can imagine one scenario, in which they [the government] will cut off the STA’s funding, the STA will go down, then they will give a lot of money to this new agency”.

Slovenian and international press freedom watchdog organisations have already accused Jansa of using the coronavirus pandemic to restrict media freedoms.

His policies could attract greater international attention in the second half of this year, when Slovenia will hold the presidency of Council of the European Union.

But in a letter on Friday to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Jansa said the allegations that he has been restricting media freedoms are “absurd”.

Attack on Kosovo Investigative Journalist Condemned

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

International and local Kosovo press associations have condemned the attack against an investigative journalist who was brutally beaten near his house in Fushe Kosove/Kosovo Polje, at around midnight on Wednesday.

Visar Duriqi, a journalist of the local Kosovo online news portal Insajderi as well as the author and producer of local show INDOKS, was assaulted by three unidentified individuals at around midnight after a TV debate.

“Three people had been waiting for the journalist Duriqi, in front of the entrance of his apartment. He was attacked as soon as he got out of his car,” Insajderi reported on Thursday.

Duriqi has authored several episodes on crime and corruption on Insajderi’s show, INDOKS.

The police are investigating the case.

“It is suspected that three masked persons attacked the victim with fists at the entrance of his apartment, causing bodily injuries. The victim was sent to the UCCK (University Clinical Center of Kosovo in Pristina), for necessary medical treatment and then he was discharged,” a police statement read.

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo, AJK, condemned the attack as a threat to freedom of “speech and media” and called on the authorities “to investigate the motives … and shed light over this case”. The AJK pledged also to inform domestic and international stakeholders.

On Thursday, the European Center for Press and Media Freedom, ECPMF, on Twitter also condemned “this brutal attack on journalist Visar Duriqi” and urged Chief Prosecutor Aleksander Lumezi “to urgently and thoroughly investigate and hold the criminals responsible to account”. 

Flutura Kusari, legal advisor at ECMPF, wrote on Facebook that “violence against journalists in Kosovo is on the rise” and added that it can only be curbed if the punishments of attackers include “harsh sentences”, similarly to when a politician is attacked.

Online Media Needs More Self-Regulation – not Interference: BIRN Panel

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

State regulation of the media should be limited, with self-regulation strengthened and prioritized, journalists and media experts from the region told the third and final online public debate on online media regulation held by BIRN on Wednesday.

Panelists representing different prominent media in the region as well as legal experts focused on potential solutions for self-regulation and regulation of online media, considering the growing pressures that media in the region face, such as speed, clicks and disinformation.

The panelists agreed that the government should not have mechanisms to interfere in the media content but should provide regulations to ensure a better environment for journalists to work in.

Authorities should also strengthen the rule of law in terms of copyright and censorship of hate speech, pornography, and ethical violations, they said.

Flutura Kusari, legal advisor at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, said Kosovo has a good self-regulatory non-governmental body, the Press Council, which consists of around 30 local media representatives, all holding one another accountable.

However, self-regulation is limited due to the lack of rule of law all over the region, Kusari explained.

Geri Emiri, editor at the Albanian media outlet Amfora, explained that most of the media in Albania have self-regulatory mechanisms whereby anyone can complain of abuses.

“It is not enough if the will to self-regulate, after a complaint by a citizen, does not exist,” Emiri said, explaining the difficulties media in Albania face from the government trying to create legal methods that he said lead to “censorship”.

Emiri was referring to legislation proposed by Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama as an “anti-defamation package”, which aimed to create an administrative body with powers to order media to take down news reports that “infringe the dignity of individuals”, under the threat of heavy fines. Critics said the law could have a chilling effect on media freedom due to its broad terms.

Goran Mihajlovski, editor-in-chief at the Macedonian media outlet Sakam da kazam, agreed that government bodies would not be right for media regulation “due to changes in government and [because] the body would politically be appointed and would open doors to more political influence and pressure on the media”.

Jelena Vasic, project manager at KRIK, Serbia, said professional media can assist in regulating the media enviroment in the region and in curbing fake news by “debunking” and fact-checking news that is already published.

Vasic said he was aware that debunked fake news often does not reach all of the audience that the fake news has already reached, but added that, “even if half of the people who read the fake news are now faced with the facts, a good change has been made”.

Alen Altoka, head of digital media at Oslobodjenje, Bosnia, said one of the main problems behind the increase in fake news in the region is profit-based media organisdations, suggesting that Google should not allow ads for fake news portals as one solution.

BIRN engages in fact checking and debunking fake news, as well as other digital rights violations in the region via its Investigation Resource Desk platform, BIRD, monitoring tool.

BIRN held its first online public debate within the Media for All project, funded by the UK government, in September 2020, followed by another debate on the topic in late December.

Turkish Court Overrules Erdogan’s Power Grab Over Anadolu Agency

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

In a surprise setback to the authoritarian President, the Turkish Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday that the Presidency’s move to take direct control over the Anadolu Agency is against the constitution.

The news agency is constitutionally an autonomous institution with a budget supplied by the state. But after the country introduced an executive presidential system in 2018, concentrating power in the head of state, it was put under the direct control of the Communications Directorate of Turkish Presidency by presidential decree.

“The control of Anadolu Agency by a directorate under the Turkish Presidency does not accord with Anadolu Agency’s autonomy and may harm the objectivity of its publications,” the court said in a statement.

The statement added that such direct control undermined the institutional independence of the agency’s organisation and human resources.

Opposition parties and media experts accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of turning Anadolu Agency into a government mouthpiece.

The Constitutional Court made its decision following the submission of a complaint by the main opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP. Only two judges voted against, while the other 13 members voted to scrap the presidential takeover.

Anadolu Agency was established by Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in 1920, mainly to tell the world about the Turkish War of Independence that followed the end of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1925, the agency was made a private company with a view to making it a modern and independent media outlet, but with funding secured by the state.

A century on, it is now a global news agency with publications in 13 different languages, including Arabic, English, French and Russian.

The new agency has also become an important instrument in Turkey’s application of “soft power” foreign policy activism in the Balkans. It operates in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Albanian and Macedonian with regional offices in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Skopje, North Macedonia.

Abuse of Journalists Rarely Punished by Serbian Courts: Report

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A report analysing court cases for crimes against journalists, published on Tuesday by the Belgrade-based Slavko Curuvija Foundation and Centre for Judicial Research, says that on average, only one in ten criminal complaints about threats to or attacks on journalists results in a court verdict.

The report, entitled ‘Protection of Freedom of Speech in the Judicial System of Serbia’, analysed 20 court cases dating from 2017 and 2020 that involved the alleged crimes of endangering someone’s security, general endangerment, persecution, violent behaviour and inciting ethnic, racial and religious hatred and intolerance.

“Most reports of acts against journalists don’t go any further than the prosecutor’s office. Only every tenth reported case ends with a final court decision,” the report says.

The report claims that when deciding not to press charges, “it seems that the prosecution did not consider the specifics of these cases carefully and attentively enough”.

It also says that in cases where there have been convictions, courts imposed suspended sentences in eight of them and a year of home detention in one case, while the only custodial sentence imposed was six months in jail.

The report also analyses 305 misdemeanour cases from 2017 and 2019 in which journalists, editors, publishers and media outlets were sued.

It says that most cases drag on for too long, meaning that a final judgment is often made too long after the initial incident for it to provide adequate legal satisfaction for the defendants or plaintiffs in terms of protecting their rights.

“In by far the largest number of cases, the process lasts longer than a year,” the report says.

It partly blames delays in sending out copies of verdicts, which in turn delays appeals.

The report also says that some media publish articles without properly checking the facts and the source of the information.

“Compensation is often awarded for using the image of the wrong person to illustrate an article,” it says.

Call for Applications for Training in Podcasting

Posted on by BIRD

Podcasts are transforming journalism around the globe and their popularity has skyrocketed in recent years. But in the Western Balkans’ media landscape, podcasts that combine the power of investigative journalism and narrative story-telling are still in their infancy. However, there is growing interest in this type of content that can attract a large and diverse audience via mobile devices.

If you are a journalist, editor or producer who wants to learn more about podcasting and are wondering how to turn an ambitious investigative project into a successful podcast, this four-day training will introduce you to the basic concepts and skills needed to adapt investigative stories into podcasts.

Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, is organising a training on investigative podcasts for media representatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, within the regional “Media for All” project. The workshop is being led by Michael Montgomery, senior producer at Reveal from the US-based Center for Investigative Reporting. Michael will be joined by Sean Glynn, CEO of Novel, one of the UK’s leading audio production companies, and Max O’Brien, Executive Producer of Novel’s The Bellingcat Podcast.

Following the workshop, the best proposals for new podcasts will receive a financial award to cover production costs and further mentoring support from Michael Montgomery and other producers and editors. In addition to covering story development and production, we will ensure that, at the end of the training you understand how to identify and connect with the target audience and the basic steps in marketing and distribution.

Our lead trainer Michael Montgomery is a dynamic, award-winning journalist with an accomplished career in radio/podcasts, television and print. His work has appeared in national and international outlets including Reveal, NPR, Frontline, the BBC and BIRN. He also has extensive experience in the Balkans: he covered the rise of Slobodan Milosevic, the fall of communism throughout the region and the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo for the UK’s prestigious Daily Telegraph.

Sean Glynn is a highly experienced series producer and executive producer whose work spans current affairs, arts, history and politics. Sean has produced stories and flagship factual series for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.

Max O’Brien has overseen award-winning audio documentaries and previously produced BBC Radio 4’s popular long-running series Something Understood. Max has recorded everywhere from séance rooms and operating theatres during open heart surgery to the control room of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

Who can apply?

Journalists, editors, producers who wish to learn about podcasting and develop skills that will enable them to create their own podcasts should apply.

All potential participants should apply using the information provided in the application form.

How to apply?

Applicants should complete and submit only one application that you can download below. All applications should be submitted in English to aida.ajanovic@birn.eu.com along with the applicant’s CV.

DATE OF TRAINING:  March 22-31, 2021 (Four day sessions in two weeks)

TRAINING VENUE: Online

LANGUAGE: Working language of the training is English

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Download here

APPLICATION FORM: Download here

DEADLINE: March 14, at midnight Central European Time

DATA PROTECTION INFO: Privacy notice

OSCE Chides Kosovo for Preventing Entry of Serbian Journalists

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The OSCE Mission in Kosovo has said it is “concerned” about the recent denial of entry to the country by journalistic crews from Serbia at the Jarinje crossing point.

“Such actions not only contribute to the difficulties that journalists face in conducting their work, but also send a negative message about press freedom and the tolerance for a pluralistic media landscape,” OSCE Kosovo wrote on its Facebook account.

A crew for the Radio Television Serbia TV Show Right to Tomorrow was banned from entering Kosovo on Thursday. The show’s editor, Svetlana Vukumirovic, told RTS they were banned from entering because they did not announce their arrival 72 hours earlier.

“No one ever asked the show’s crew or other journalists to announce themselves in such a way before,” Vukumirovic told RTS.

Earlier, an RTS journalistic team tried to enter Kosovo on February 15, but were also denied permission. Four days later, they were officially banned from entry. The Journalists’ Association of Serbia, UNS, in a press release condemned an “attack on press freedom”.

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo and Metohija, which represents Kosovo Serb media, organised a protest on the border line on Wednesday. Association president Budimir Nicic said stopping RTS journalists from entering Kosovo was “classic harassment”.

“This is a classic harassment, this is a classic threat to human rights and media freedoms, this is a violation of all civilization values ​​and norms, and must stop,” Nicic said at the protest.

The Serbian government’s liaison officer with Pristina, Dejan Pavicevic, told the UNS that only senior state officials had an obligation to announce their arrival in advance – not journalists.

“This only applies to top government officials … We will now ask Brussels to take concrete steps because this is a flagrant violation of the [2013 Brussels] Agreement [between Belgrade and Pristina], on freedom of movement and the right of journalists to freedom of reporting,” Pavicevic told UNS.

The Independent Journalist Association of Serbia, NUNS, warned “that the journalistic profession does not serve for political undercutting and collecting points, but to report honestly and credibly on events that are of public importance”.

Kosovo and Serbia reached an agreement about officials’ visits in 2014 that included a procedure for announcing visits of officials from one country to the other. However, both countries have continued stopping officials from entering from the other country, often without explanation.

Pandemic Leads to Rise in Cyber Abuse of Children in Albania

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Thousands of children in Albania are at greater risk of harm as their lives move increasingly online during the COVID-19 pandemic, UNICEF and local experts warn.

The closure of the country in March last year due to the spread of the novel coronavirus, including a shift to online schooling, has led to an increase in the use of the Internet by children, some of them under the age of 13.

According to a 2020 UNICEF Albania study titled “A Click Away”, about 14 per cent of children interviewed reporting experiencing uncomfortable online situations, while one in four said they had been in contact at least once with someone they had never met face-to-face before.

The same study said that two in 10 children reported meeting in person someone they had previously only had contact with online, and one in 10 children reported having had at least one unwanted sexual experience via the internet.

A considerable number of those who had caused these experiences were persons known to the children.

UNICEF Albania told BIRN that, after the closure of schools and the introduction of social distancing measures, more than 500,000 children found themselves faced with a new online routine. Online platforms suddenly became the new norm.

“If before the pandemic 13-year-olds or older had the opportunity to gradually become acquainted with social media, communication applications or online platforms, the pandemic suddenly exposed even the youngest children to information technology,” the office told BIRN.

Growth in child pornography sites

According to another report, by the National Centre for Safe Internet and the Centre for the Rights of the Child in Albania, there has been an alarming rise in reports of child pornography sites on the Internet.

This report, titled ‘Internet Rapists: The Internet Industry in the Face of Child and Adolescent Protection in Albania’, is based on data obtained from the National Secure Internet Platform, National Helpline for ALO Children 116-111 and the National Centre for Secure Internet in Albania.

“The number of reported sites of child pornography has reached a record 6,273 pages, or 600 times more than a year ago,” the report states.

It said that “40 per cent of the cases of pornographic sites, videos or even images with the same content are with Albanian children, while over 60 per cent of the cases of pornography are with non-Albanian children”.

The 15-17 year-old age group is most affected by cyber incidents, it said.

Cybercrime experts at the Albanian State Police also told BIRN: “There has been a general increase in criminal offenses in the area of ​​cybercrime.”

In August last year, UNICEF Albania published another study, “The lost cases”, noting that between 5,000 and 20,000 referrals are made annually by international partners such as Interpol, Europol and the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children to the cybercrime department of Albanian police regarding the possession, distribution, production and use of child sexual abuse materials in Albania.

But according to official data of the Ministry of Interior, between 2016 and 2018, only 12 cases were investigated under Article 117 of the Criminal Code, ‘pornography with minors’, and only one case was ended in conviction.

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