The European Court of Human Rights, ECHR in Strasbourg on Tuesday ruled that a Romanian journalist did not violate billionaire Ion Țiriac’s right to private and family life with a newspaper report published in 2010.
The article written by the journalist from Financiarul newspaper, identified only as S.M., reported on the fortunes of 15 well-known Romanian public figures including Țiriac and their debts to the Romanian state.
But the ECHR’s judge said they had “ruled unanimously that there was no violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights”.
The article said that only two of the 15 people listed owed more to the Romanian state than Tiriac.
“The millionaire also has additional debts through the company PAM SA,” the article said. It further alleged that the public figures listed were hiding money in “personal offshore accounts”.
It claimed that most businesspeople with debts to the Romanian state had connections to public procurement contracts.
In his petition to the ECHR, Tiriac claimed 130,000 euros in damages, claiming that the article violated his honour and dignity.
Tiriac argued that the journalist had failed to provide clear and accurate information, and pointed to numerous alleged falsehoods in the article, refuting many of the claims of financial chicanery, according to the ECHR decision.
Before it was brought to the ECHR, the case was previously dismissed by the Bucharest County Court on the grounds of journalistic freedom of expression.
The Bucharest court stated that the journalist had acted in good faith and that the article had been a combination of statements of fact and value judgments.
Tiriac appealed, but in 2015, the Bucharest Court of Appeal dismissed his objection, holding that the article had concerned a matter of public interest.
According to Forbes Romania, former tennis player Tiriac’s fortune was estimated at 1.44 billion euros in 2021. Tiriac has business interests in trading cars, real estate, retail, insurance, banking and various other sectors.
A new report published by StateWatch, a UK-based international rights organisation monitoring the state and civil liberties in Europe, says an algorithm used to detect alleged government opponents in the Turkish Armed Forces, TSK, has been used to persecute thousands of people.
“The report shines a flashlight on the (mis)use of algorithms and other information-based systems by the Turkish government in its ruthless counterterrorism crackdown since the July 2016 events. Thousands of people have been put out of work, detained, and persecuted by reference to ‘scores’ assigned to them by a tool of persecution, the so-called FETO-Meter,” Ali Yildiz, one of the authors of the report and a legal expert, told BIRN.
Yildiz added that “this situation is far from being unique to Turkey: in an increasingly connected world where states make wider recourse to counter-terrorism surveillance tools, the possibility of falling victim to algorithmic persecution is high”.
“The report, therefore, serves as a wake-up call to bring more awareness to the devastating effects of algorithmic persecution and oppression not just in Turkey, but also in the entire world,” Yildiz added.
The so-called FETO-Meter is based on 97 main criteria and 290 sub-criteria, many of which violate individual privacy.
The name references alleged supporters of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen whom the government calls FETO, short for Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation. US-based Gulen has always denied any links to terrorism.
The questions for profiling and scoring individuals include information of their marriages, education, bank accounts, their children’s school records, their promotions and references in the army. The questionnaire demands information about people’s relatives and also neighbours.
It was deployed following the July 2016 coup attempt to root out alleged followers of Gulen who is accused of masterminding the failed coup.
“Hundreds of thousands of people have been profiled and assigned a ‘score’ by the algorithm, which is operated by a special unit called ‘The Office of Judicial Proceedings and Administrative Action’, ATİİİŞ, within the Turkish navy,” Emre Turkut, another author of the report and an expert on international human rights law from Hertie School Berlin, told BIRN.
Turkut said that the report includes testimonies from several high-ranking former military officers who have since sought asylum in the EU, and highlights that application of the algorithm has been arbitrary and underpinned punitive measures not only against primary suspects but anyone in their social circles, including their family members, colleagues, and neighbours.
However, Cihat Yayci, a former navy admiral and the architect of the FETO-Meter algorithm, has defended it.
“FETO militants are very successful in hiding their real identities. The FETO-Meter gave us very successful results for identifying Gulenists,” Cihat Yayci said in a TV interview in 2020.
Since 2016, 292,000 people have been detained and nearly 598,000 people investigated over their alleged links with Gulen.
According to the Turkish defence and interior ministries, nearly 21,000 members of the armed forces, 31,000 police officers, more than 5,500 gendarmerie officers and 509 coastguards have also lost their jobs over alleged links to Gulen.
More than 30,000 people are still in prison because of their alleged ties to the cleric and more than 125,000 public servants have been dismissed.
The violations recorded in the second half of October show that routine digital violations are not disappearing. Hate speech, discrimination and war-mongering flourish in Bosnia’s digital environment, and, following the introduction of a new decree by the President of the Serb-led entity, Republika Srpska, digital violations have accelerated further.
Local elections in Hungary and North Macedonia, where ruling parties suffered setbacks, also caused a rise in violations, triggered by a climate of political antagonism.
Finally, in Serbia and Romania, the presence of unsolved issues at home resulted in the resurgence of the one and the same violations.
Hate Speech and War-mongering Rhetoric Poison Bosnia
With 45 violations recorded in our database out of a total of 101 cases between August 1, 2020, and August 31, 2021, hate speech and discrimination remain the most widespread form of violation in the Bosnian digital environment.
Zeljka Cvijanovic (L) speaks during the 29th Economic Forum in Krynica-Zdroj, southern Poland, 03 September 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/GRZEGORZ MOMOT POLAND OUT
Following recent developments, including the entry into force of a presidential decree from Zeljka Cvijanovic, head of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, aimed at not complying with a state law banning the denial of genocide and war crimes, there has been a further acceleration in hate speech and war-mongering rhetoric in the country.
Two hate speech and warmongering incidents were recorded in the second half of October. After the release of a video on Twitter on October 22 from the online news outlet Istraga, several comments inciting ethnic hatred and war propaganda showed up. Footage had showed Dragan Lukač, RS Minister of Interior, with members of the RS special forces doing exercises in Jahorina.
The second case involved Muhamed Velic, a Muslim cleric in Sarajevo, who called for war on his Facebook page, garnering 2,200 likes and 60 shares. The post, published on October 16 and later removed, said: “Ammunition in Konjic and Gorazde! Howitzers in Travnik! RPGs in Hadžići! Etc. Trust yourself and your hooves! They know that this is not a joke and that Bosnian might is not a small cat!” The message, which was then shared on Twitter by Bosnia’s consul in Frankfurt, Admir Atović, forced the country’s Foreign Ministry to intervene and seek urgent clarifications from him.
Hungarian Opposition Primaries Prompt Flow of Digital Violations
The 2021 Hungarian opposition primary, held in two rounds between September 18 and October 16, featured a harsh political confrontation between opposition candidates and the ruling Fidesz party. The stakes were high: to choose the challenger against Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in next year’s parliamentary elections. After the second round of the primary, voters elected Peter Marki-Zay, the conservative mayor of Hódmezővásárhely, to lead the opposition into the 2022 parliamentary election.
Hungarian opposition leader Peter Marki-Zay gives an international press conference at Brussels Press club, Belgium, 11 November 2021. Marki-Zay was nominated as a candidate by six-party opposition alliance formed specifically to oust Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in next year’s election. Photo: EPA-EFE/OLIVIER HOSLET
Before and during the primaries, a series of cyberattacks were carried out. The opposition asked Ferenc Frész, a senior cyber defence expert, to investigate the causes and origins of these DDoS attacks. The aftermath of the election after the second round was also a breeding ground for online violations. Three independent media outlets were attacked on announcing the primary election results. The pro-government website, Origo, was also repeatedly hit by DDoS attacks between October 22 and 24, making the site inaccessible. Internal investigations suggested that unknown individuals externally attacked the website. In the final days of the primaries, strange advertisements, apparently promoting the main opposition candidate, appeared in the news feeds of several Hungarian Facebook users, claiming that Márki-Zay was building a “new Fidesz” party. The messages quoted and distorted many of his statements on subjects like the corporal punishment of children.
Another incident recorded in our database involved the temporary suspension and unavailability of Valasz.hu, a website storing the complete archive of Heti Válasz, a conservative weekly established by Fidesz in 2001 and shut down in June 2018, after Lajos Simicska, a business magnate close to Orban, bought its publisher. As reported earlier by BIRN, Hungary remains a critical country in terms of the role of genuinely independent media. Members of Orban’s closest circle now own almost 88 media outlets.
Interference in North Macedonia’s Election Alleged, COVID Certificates Hacked
A woman votes at the polling station in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, 17 October 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI
In the second half of October, political confrontation worsened in North Macedonia following two rounds of local elections on October 17 and 31. As Balkan Insight reported, the elections were of crucial significance, as the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party, for the first time since 2017, re-established itself as the dominant political force, also declaring that it now had the strength in parliament to lead a government.
On October 24, Stevcho Jakimovski, leader of the Citizen Option for Macedonia Party GROM and a candidate in the local elections for the municipality of Karpos, claimed that Chinese troll farms targeted his Facebook profile. He called on political rivals to behave ethically and not engage in such campaigns during the election. GROM, in coalition with VMRO-DPMNE at national level, ran alone in the Karpos mayoral race. On October 29, as our new focus page on COVID-19 Crisis and Tech Response reported, the Ministry of Health withdrew its EU digital certificates and QR codes, following a hacker attack.
Users of a forum said the hackers, who broke into the system and started issuing QR codes, using data from Macedonian citizens, penetrated the unprotected Macedonian server, from where they managed to get the key to the codes. IT.mk, a Macedonian information technology portal, showed how easy it was to bypass the national health system and has shared several posts of Twitter users with valid certificates, issued for Adolf Hitler, Sponge Bob and other dead or fictitious characters.
COVID-19 Fake News and Online Harassment Persist in Romania
Following a global trend, Romania’s digital environment is experiencing a rise in fake news, misinformation, and other manipulative content on the COVID-19 pandemic. Romania’s online space also continued to record a high number of episodes of misogyny towards women, especially those working in education. For instance, on January 6, a former presidential candidate and TikTok influencer, Alexandru Cumpanasu, was arrested for sending comments of a sexual nature, and instigating hatred and discrimination, against teachers and professors. Some violations that occurred in October confirm this trend in Romania’s digital environment.
On October 19, Piatra Neamț County Police opened a criminal investigation into the spread of false information after a woman streamed herself on Facebook in front of a critical care ward, where COVID patients were being treated in Piatra Neamț, north-east Romania. The woman, filming from a distance, claimed that “there is no one” inside the clinic, suggesting the pandemic was fiction. The video also became known thanks to a Facebook post of Oana Gheorghiu, cofounder of the NGO Dăruiește Viață, who immediately reported the incident.
A Romanian woman gets a Pfizer vaccine dose from a volunteer nurse, at a Covid-19 Marathon Vaccination For Life center organized at Children Palace venue in Bucharest, Romania, 22 October 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT
A second case concerned Florentina Golea, a schoolteacher who was harassed after posting photos on Facebook while teaching a class of 12-year-old girls on the importance of vaccination. On October 5, RO vaccinare, the official page of the National Committee for Vaccination, promoting the vaccination campaign in Romania, shared photos from the teacher’s profile on Facebook. After that, the teacher received hundreds of insulting comments via Facebook, from “profiteer” and “be ashamed” to “monster” and “criminal”. The teacher also received death threats from people who claimed to know where she lived and the address of her school in Tecuci, in Galați County. Sorin Cîmpeanu, Minister of Education, announced that he would support the teacher if she sued those who had harassed her on Facebook.
COVID-19 Manipulation and Threats to Journalists in Serbia
Manipulation, conspiracy theories and other fake news have spread fast in Serbia’s online environment, where most cases still seem to be linked to the COVID pandemic.
The logo of the messaging application Viber pictured on a smartphone. Photo: EPA/RITCHIE B. TONGO
Recently, a case was uncovered where some citizens were wrongly prescribed anti-parasite treatment for COVID via a Viber group. At the same time, alarmingly, Serbia stands out as one of the countries with the most attacks on independent journalists. Between August 1, 2020, and August 31, 2021, 30 out of a total of 111 such cases targeted journalists. BIRN editor and investigative journalist Ivana Jeremić was threatened by a Twitter user last December 2.
The latest cases recorded by our monitoring team confirm this trend in the Serbian digital space.
On October 10, after Serbian virologist Ana Banko stated on Radio Television of Serbia RTS that vaccinated citizens can transmit the Delta strain of the coronavirus, part of her statement was spread on social media with the intention of manipulating her words. The video shared by many users, together with the title, took the sentence out of context, leading readers to the wrong conclusion. The virologist was answering a series of questions on a talk show, and her intention was not to diminish the effects of the vaccine but only to emphasize the speed of transmission of the new Delta variant.
On October 21, meanwhile, online threats targeted two Serbian journalists, Jovana Gligorijević and Snežana Čongradin, the historian Dubravka Stojanović and the literary critic, Jelena Lalatović.
The threats, which have been condemned by the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, were misogynistic and anti-feminist, and were posted from an anonymous Twitter account. This is not the first-time threats have been sent from this account. A year ago, the journalist Vesna Mališić was also threatened by the same profile, which called for a lynch and her murder.
People in Polish Army uniform on Tuesday attacked three photojournalists working in Wiejka, a village near Michalowo, in the Podlaskie region, next to the border with Belarus, a statement put out on Wednesday by the Polish Press Club said.
The three journalists are named as Maciej Nabrdalik, a World Press Photo winner whose photos have appeared in The New York Times, Maciej Moskwa, from the documentary collective Testigo, and Martin Divisek, from the European Pressphoto Agency.
The three said the incident happened after they documented the presence of Polish armed forces around Wiejka – and that they had informed the army before taking any photos. The incident took place outside the state of the emergency zone, which blocks access of journalists to a three-kilometre-wide stretch of land along the border with Belarus.
According to the three, after they had finished their job and got back in the car to leave, people in Polish Army uniform – they never identified themselves, despite requests – blocked their path and dragged them out of the car, using obscenities.
The journalists said they were handcuffed and detained for an hour until the police came. In the meanwhile, the men in army uniforms searched the car as well as the memory cards of the camera, despite the journalists pointing out that this would breach the right to journalistic professional secrecy.
Photos posted by the Polish Press Club clearly show bruises on the wrists of the journalists, where the handcuffs would have been placed.
The incident occurred after, at the weekend, Polish police and border guards in the border area intimidated BIRN’s own team on the ground, made up of this reporter and Dutch-American photojournalist Jaap Arriens.
Early on November 14, a mixed team of both police and border guards (based on their uniforms) pulled over the car the BIRN journalists were travelling in near a checkpoint at Czeremcha, just outside the emergency zone. The uniformed officers demanded the International Mobile Equipment Identity numbers, IMEI, of the two journalists’ phones. The IMEI is a unique identifier for a mobile phone that enables it to be tracked.
When the journalists asked about the legal basis of this demand, the uniformed officers said the journalists were suspected of having stolen the phones. They added that the emergency zone had also expanded to where the journalists were at that moment, which was false: the journalists’ car was outside the emergency zone, before the checkpoint at Czeremcha. The implication was that they could be detained for up to 48 hours and face criminal proceedings initiated for illegally crossing into the zone.
“They lied to us and treated us as criminals, despite us clearly identifying ourselves as journalists,” Jaap Arriens said.
“They intimidated us in order to get the IMEI numbers. We felt that if we refused, we could be detained for up to 48 hours. This kind of behaviour means your rights are thrown right outside the window,” he added.
BIRN has heard of cases of other journalists being intimidated using similar techniques. We will return to the topic in the future.
Greek journalist Stavros Malichudis has described the activities of the country’s National Intelligence Service, EYP as “alarming” after a report alleged that he and others were put under surveillance.
“In theory, the National Intelligence Service is tasked with protecting the national security of the country. But journalism does not threaten society, it serves society,” Malichudis told BIRN.
The report by Greek journalist Dimitris Terzis for the newspaper EFSYN on Sunday presented evidence that journalists, civil servants and lawyers dealing with refugees, as well as members of the anti-vaccination movement, are being monitored by the EYP.
Terzis’ report alleged that wiretapping of telephone conversations and the creation of “ideological profiles” are some of the measures that have been used by the EYP, which comes under the control of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s office.
The report claimed that Malichudis, a BIRN contributor, was targeted over his report for the Greek investigative media outlet Solomon about a 12-year-old refugee child from Syria who was forced to live for months in administrative detention with his family on the island of Kos.
Terzis alleged that the EYP knew the content of conversations between Malichudis and an employee of the International Organization for Migration, IOM who helped him with the report for Solomon.
Malichudis questioned the EYP’s motives for the surveillance.
“The question that needs to be answered is why was the EYP interested in the work of Solomon, and to whom is the intelligence that is collected provided?” he asked.
The International Press Institute said it was “deeply concerned” by the report that Solomon and Malichudis were “secretly monitored by the National Intelligence Service”. Greek media outlets such as Reporters United and Inside Story also expressed concerns.
Terzis said that his in-depth investigation gained him access to secret documents.
“It’s unquestionable that the secret service monitors people and it cannot deny this. In the last two-and-a-half years, with the transfer of the Secret Service to the administration of the prime minister’s office, and in combination with the general context of state repression, the instrumentation of the secret service by the state is obvious,” he said.
At a press briefing on Monday, government spokesperson Giannis Oikonomou indirectly confirmed the claims that the EYP monitors specific citizens because of risks to public safety from “internal or external threats”.
The Greek government’s spokesperson did not respond to BIRN’s request for a comment.
SYRIZA, the main opposition to the right-wing ruling party, has asked for parliament’s Special Standing Committee on Institutions and Transparency to be convened and the commander of the EYP to be summoned for a hearing.
The EU Election Observation Mission said on Tuesday that non-transparent Facebook pages were responsible for “manipulative interference” in Sunday’s mayoral election run-off contests, spreading misinformation about rival parties and candidates, although the polls were well-organised.
“While candidates shared useful information through online platforms, opaque Facebook pages were used to spread misleading content hampering the voters’ ability to form opinions free from manipulative interference,” the Election Observation Mission said in a preliminary assessment of the conduct of the vote.
“Candidates generally used advertisements to promote their campaign platforms but third-party ads were largely used to discredit contestants, including with personal accusations,” the statement added.
The head of the mission, Lucas Mandl, who is member of the European Parliament, told media in Pristina that in general, the run-off elections were “well administered and competitive”.
“The campaign was vivid and peaceful, though its tone was harsher compared to the first round. However, in the absence of sanctions for campaigning outside of the official five-day period, most candidates were canvassing long before the official campaign kicked off,” Mandl said.
The preliminary statement also said that blatant lack of transparency related to the financing of contestants’ campaigns persisted in the second round.
“Perpetuating the low enforcement of campaign finance rules, the Kosovo Assembly is unable to guarantee timely audit of the disclosure reports and the CEC [Central Election Commission] did not sufficiently support the implementation of applicable regulations,” the statement said.
The EU mission said that in the absence of sanctions for campaigning outside of the official five-day period, “most candidates were canvassing long before the official campaign kicked off”.
“Candidate rallies were attended by leaders of the major parties, including by Prime Minister Albin Kurti and his ministers while LVV [ruling Vetevendosje party] candidates often portrayed themselves as the guarantors of projects financed from the central budget. Moreover, between the two rounds, the government announced a temporary increase of social benefits which led to opposition’s accusations of indirect vote buying,” it said.
Voters in 21 out of 38 municipalities went to the polls to elect new mayors in a run-off vote which was held four weeks after 17 mayors were elected in the first round.
The election result produced a disappointment for Vetevendosje, which won only four of the 12 municipalities in which it was competing, and lost in the capital Pristina.
Belgrade-backed Serb party Srpska Lista won the most number of municipalities (ten) followed by the Democratic Party of Kosovo (nine), the Democratic League of Kosovo (seven), the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (five) and the Social Democratic Initiative Nisma (one).
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