Month: January 2022

Albania’s Rama Appoints Spokesperson to Run New ‘Information’ Agency

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A BIRN Freedom of Information Request has revealed that Prime Minister Edi Rama on 29 September last year appointed his own former spokesperson, Endri Fuga, as head of the newly established Media and Information Agency, MIA. The appointment was not published and was disclosed only recently following the FOI request.

The establishment of the MIA has alarmed rights organisations, who fear it will enable the government to further stifle freedom of the media and further reduce media access to government.

Fuga has been a spokesperson for Rama since at least a decade ago, when Rama was still Mayor of Tirana. For a short period he was the Socialist Party chairman.

“The General Director of the Media and Information Agency, Endri Fuga, has been appointed by order of the Prime Minister, No 96, on 29.9.2021,” the written answer to BIRN’s FOI reads.

The new agency will have a staff of some 61 and its job includes producing print and audiovisual materials to promote the work of the government and to “monitor means of mass communications” for assessing public opinion on the government. The new agency director will have “the level of State Minister,” the decision reads.

The agency will control all government communications, including that of separate ministries and other state agencies. It will hire and fire PR officers in any state institution and will organise the press conferences of any minister.

The government has awarded the agency office space at the Palace of Congress, a Communist-era palace in Tirana.

Rights organizations have condemned the creation of the agency, noting the established practice of the government of producing its own “news” and of banning journalists or video reporters from following its activities directly.

A letter signed by six international rights organisations last September called for the cancelling of the agency.

“Rather than improve journalists’ access to public information, the establishment of the MIA may result in the exact opposite,” the joint letter read.

“Context is vital here,” it added. “Journalists in Albania currently work in an extremely difficult climate for accessing information from government sources. The government communicates with journalists via WhatsApp groups instead of using official communication channels.

“Reporters working for independent media are regularly discriminated against when seeking information or comment from ministers. Journalists viewed as representing ‘opposition’ outlets are denied accreditation or barred from asking questions at press conferences,” it continued.

The letter said the agency’s stated role of “observing mass communication means” was problematic and “sets alarm bells ringing”.

“Following major revelations about the collection of citizen’s data by political parties via state institutions, the notion of tax-payer money being used to fund the monitoring of the press and social media by a government agency sets alarm bells ringing,” it read.

Rama dismissed such concerns as false alarms.

Albania Online Media Blame Cyber-Attacks on Tirana Mayor

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Online media critical of Albania’s government claim that the cyber attacks that targeted them recently were likely coordinated, and possibly linked to Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj.

They told BIRN that they suspected that the attacks happened because they published a taped conversation in which Veliaj can be heard using slurs, coarse language and threats when speaking to regional football officials.

They said the attacks made it difficult for the public to access their webpages, and that the attacks looked coordinated.

Brahim Shima, director at Ora News, a broadcaster based in Tirana, told BIRN he believed that the attack had been deliberate.

“The attack was completely intentional, to make it as difficult as possible to access the news at Ora News. There were previous attempts to hack the site, but the attack launched in January was aimed at reducing it, or maximizing our difficulty in disseminating news,” Shima told BIRN.

He added that they connected the attack to the battle between the Albania Football Federation, FSHF, and the Tirana Mayor over elections for a new head of the football governing body.

“We do not have concrete facts, but [we believe] everything has to do with pressure from Mayor Veliaj towards the FSHF,” he added.

Enton Abilekaj, who runs a local media outlet called Dosja.al, said the cyber attacks targeted his media as well, making access to its webpage difficult.

“The company that provides us with online activity informed us about a special attack, which was not done by hackers but by buying IPs abroad, so artificially increasing traffic, so that the server could not cope and the site could not be accessed,” Abilekaj told BIRN.

“From the investigation we did with colleagues who had the same problem, we realized that the attacked sites were the same ones that published the audio recording of the mayor in a meeting with members of the Tirana regional Football Assembly,” he added.

He said that the attack had finished, but had left a lot of uncertainty within the media.

Andi Bushati, who runs Lapsi.al, told BIRN that he also saw the attacks as connected with the publication of the tape in which Mayor Veliaj appeared to be pressuring the football community of the capital to interfere in the FSHF elections.

“We do not have 100-per-cent verifiable evidence that the cyber attack came from the mayor, but the fact that those media outlets that gave great visibility to this news were attacked and, above all, that the FSHF website that first published this eavesdropping was attacked, leads all assumptions to Veliaj,” Bushati told BIRN.

Gerti Progni, an Albanian cyber expert, told BIRN that portals that are critical of the authorities and the government have been subjected to cyber attacks “for some time now”.

“But it has never happened that the attack was so large and at such a high cost, because the type of attack was a DDOS [denial of distribution of service],” Progni said. “It is the only attack that is almost impossible to detect, and it’s very difficult and costly to defend oneself from it,” he added.

Romanian Far-Right Party Condemned for Blacklisting Hostile Media

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The right-wing nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians, AUR, has been criticised for started a public campaign on Facebook against Romanian media outlets it deems hostile to its message.

“The audience has spoken: Digi24 TV station is the most toxic and false media institution. Unfortunately for them, the ‘young hopes’ from ‘G4 Fake Media’ only managed to get a mention from the jury, as did their colleagues from Sputnik,” AUR said on Facebook, naming various media outlets it resents.

According to audience rankings, Digi24 TV is in fact one of the most-watched televisions in Romania and news website G4Media.ro is in the top ten in the country.

The editor-in-chief of G4Media.ro, Cristi Pantazi, told BIRN that blacklisting media is a tradition on the far right in Romania.

“Far-right fascist parties made such blacklists before. The Iron Guard [the pro-Nazi nationalist movement in pre-war Romania] had blacklists in the interwar period. This is exactly how the extremist AUR party behaves now,” he said.

Pantazi added that by making public blacklists, AUR intends “to intimidate journalists who honestly report this party’s facts, intentions and positions. AUR wants to inhibit the professional press, which presents the public as they are: as anti-Semites, Holocaust-deniers, violent, and hate-speech promoters”.

The attacks started after G4Media labeled the party as extremist, based on a long line of public acts by its leaders including a violent assault on parliament, physical and verbal violence to parliamentarians, minimisation of the Holocaust and the appointment as honorary president of Calin Georgescu, a known venerator of the Iron Guard.

An NGO that campaigns for journalists’ rights in Romania, Active Watch, also condemned the AUR blacklist. “The AUR party blatantly violates the principles of democratic life by urging citizens to help blacklist those media outlets it labels as toxic,” Active Watch said.

It argued that such strategies of creating division in the public space have no place now, but are similar to those adopted by the parties that laid the foundations for the dictatorial regimes of the last century.

“We stand in solidarity with these media outlets, which are now the target of a dangerous populist attack, and call on other parties, organisations and citizens who still believe in freedom of conscience, freedom of expression and the right to information to firmly reject blacklists and attacks on democracy,” Active Watch added.

Turkish Journalists Targeted by Prosecutions, Fines, Jail Terms: Report

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A report published on Monday by Turkish independent media website Bianet said that in 2021, the Turkish government mobilised supposedly self-regulating and impartial institutions to “bring journalists and media outlets that are critical, investigative and inquiring to their knees”.

The BIA Media Monitor 2021 Report said that 35 journalists in Turkey were sentenced to a total of 92 years in prison in 2021.

Charges included “insulting the President”, “membership of an [illegal or terrorist] organisation”, “obtaining and disclosing confidential documents” or “espionage” under the Turkish Penal Code, or “propagandising for a terrorist organisation” under the country’s Anti-Terror Law.

Eight journalists in 2021, and 70 journalists in past five years, have been convicted of insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The report noted that Turkey has been the “world’s worst jailer of journalists” for years, and the government relied even more strongly on “judicial control” of the media in 2021.

State institutions for monitoring and regulating the media continued yo target independent journalists and media houses “in a mediascape where 90 per cent of national media outlets are controlled by the government”, the report said.

It noted that newspapers including Evrensel, Sözcü, Cumhuriyet, Korkusuz, BirGun, Karar, Milli Gazete, Yenicag and Yeni Asya were barred from carrying advertisements for public institutions in 2021, depriving them of revenue.

It also said that the Radio and Television Supreme Council, RTUK imposed fines on media outlets that aired critical or inquiring broadcasts such as Fox TV, Halk TV, Tele1 and KRT. In total, broadcasters were fined 31,630,000 Turkish lira – more than two million euros – in 2021.

According to the report, 56 journalists were physically attacked and 41 journalists were detained by police, mostly during their coverage of public events such as protests.

Government censorship, particularly of online media, also continued in 2021.

A total of 975 online news articles were censored in 2021, and 5,976 articles have been censored in the past five years, according to the data collected for the report.

Thirty-six journalists won cases against Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights, receiving more than 114,000 euros in compensation in 2021.

Turkey ranked 153th out of 180 countries in 2021 in the latest press freedom index issued watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders.

Kosovo Public Broadcaster Board Sacks Director for Negligence

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The newly elected board of the Kosovo public broadcaster, Radio Television of Kosovo, RTK, has dismissed Ngadhnjim Kastrati as director for not performing his duties effectively and for violating RTK law.

“I received notification of my dismissal at home where I have been in isolation for several days due to COVID-19,” Kastrati announced on Facebook. “I was not notified of any dismissal procedure and nor was there an item on the agenda for my dismissal,” he added.

Kastrati was dismissed by nine votes in favour and one against. “The decision for the dismissal is based on numerous violations of the Law on RTK and other sub-legal acts in the RTK during Kastrati’s mandate. The RTK Board concluded that the general director neglected irregularities, abuses, lack of work, nepotism … and continued biased reporting by the public broadcaster,” the board said.

Last year, Kastrati was grilled about nepotistic job appointments by two parliamentary commissions that oversee RTK. Kastrati then defended the employment of family members of former president Hashim Thaci, now facing war crimes charges at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in the Hague. He said MPs should not interfere in recruitment processes.

BIRN reported on how Thaci family members were hired as a copyright experts, a camera operator and in the marketing department.

In its 2020 report on Kosovo’s progress, the European Commission said that RTK “remains vulnerable to political pressure and influence”, mainly due to being “directly state-funded, with its budget determined annually by the Assembly”.

According to the report, RTK at the time had 1,024 employees, of whom 806 were on regular contracts and the rest working part-time. Just over two-thirds of the broadcaster’s budget went on salaries, it said. The general consensus is that RTK has too many employees.

The board’s decision to dismiss Kastrati also cites a 2020 National Audit report, which identified mismanagement and unwillingness to improve and resolve RTK problems, mismanagement by RTK marketing contracts, and mismanagement of invoice contracts.

During Kastrati’s mandate, which was due to end in early 2022 anyway, there were accusations also that RTK would propagandize for certain politicians, and that there was budget misuse.

In its dismissal decision, the RTK board claimed Kastrati failed to open proper vacancy positions for the needs of RTK and had violated the law by allowing an editor-in-chief to remain in post since 2019 when the law allows only six-month terms.

The board claimed Kastrati has violated RTK’s internal Regulation on Material and Disciplinary Responsibilities by not taking “corrective measures after ascertaining violations by employees”. For example, Ridvan Berisha on January 10 confirmed via email that he had not been to work for almost a year – but continues to be paid by RTK.

Contested Bosnian Holiday and Hungarian Election Trigger Online Violations

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The start of 2022 has seen a rise in political and ethnic tensions, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary.

In Bosnia, the celebration of a hotly debated holiday, Day of Republika Srpska, has exacerbated existing ethnic and political tensions between Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks. In Hungary, meanwhile, the ruling Fidesz party’s anti-LGBT+ rhetoric and smear campaigns against political opponents have marred the pre-election period.

After the election of a new prime minister in North Macedonia, old political tensions there also remain at the fore. In Serbia, meanwhile, journalists still face online death threats. Phishing scams continue to disrupt Romania’s digital space.

Banned Bosnian Serb holiday sparks ethnic hatred online

Following the commemoration on January 9 of the banned national holiday day in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, marking the 30th anniversary of the RS’s existence, political tensions in the country have worsened.

In November 2018, Bosnia’s Constitutional Court declared, for the second time since a 2015 ruling, that the Republika Srpska’s national holiday was unconstitutional because, among others, it discriminated against non-Serbs in Republika Srpska, mainly because January 9 is also a Serbian Orthodox religious celebration, St Stephen’s Day.

The holiday has triggered a series of incidents in both Bosnian and Serbian cities, including protests by Bosnian citizens living abroad.

On the same day the celebration was held, videos reporting the holiday published by Bosnian online media attracted numerous comments that included hate speech, calls for violence and warmongering rhetoric.

Serbian flags fly on the Serbian Government building in Belgrade, Serbia, 15 September 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/MARKO DJOKOVIC

On January 10, a Facebook page entitled Green Berets of Bosnia and Herzegovina, named after an ethnic Bosniak paramilitary organization, founded in Sarajevo in 1992, launched an appeal for new members.

Gorica Dodik, the daughter of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, was also targeted on January 11 with misogynistic remarks, sexist insults and hate speech over her Twitter posts on the RS holiday. Her Twitter account was also suspended for a period from the San Francisco social network.

Attacks on Orban rivals and LGBTQ+ community rise in Hungary ahead of elections

Ahead of the parliamentary election in Hungary on April 3, which Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for the first time since 2010, when he was elected PM, risks losing, the political balance in Hungary is clearly wavering.

What happens in April is likely to be a pivotal moment in the post-communist history of Hungary.

To complicate matters, on April 3, Hungarian voters will also vote in a controversial government-initiated referendum on LGBTQ+ rights. Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party have said the referendum on “child protection”, which will contain five questions, aims to preserve children from homosexual and transgender influences promoted by media inside and outside Hungary.

“If a man and a woman live together, get married and children are born, we call this a family. This is not a question of human rights, we are just calling things by their true name,” Orbán told an interview for Magyar Nemzet.


So-called Progress Flags, aimed at protesting against Hungary’s recently passed so-called Anti-Paedophilia Act, fly at the Hofvijver in The Hague, the Netherlands, 27 June 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/JEROEN JUMELET

On January 11, pro-government media outlets backed Fidesz’s anti-LGBT+ rhetoric about reaffirming the value of the traditional family. Fidesz presented misleading data report from UK, Sweden and Spain, wrongly suggesting that masses of children in these countries are being subjected to sex reassignment surgeries.

Campaigns targeting Orban’s opponents remain widespread within Hungary. Following a media campaign launched on December 20 against Imre Mártha, the head of Budapest’s public utility companies, accused of numerous allegations which turned out to be false, more misinformation has targeted the mayor of Budapest.

On January 15, a reporter published photos claiming that mayor Gergely Karácsony, a member of the Hungarian green party Dialogue for Hungary, had parked his car in a no-parking zone. The photos, however, did not prove that parking was prohibited in that area.

False accusations and misogyny mark North Macedonian digital space

After almost two months of political crisis and the parliamentary appointment on January 17 of the Social Democrat leader Dimitar Kovacevski as the new prime minister, political friction in North Macedonia remains strong.

Outgoing PM Zoran Zaev, accused of not having fully fulfilled his promises of internal reform and of poor management of the Covid crisis, remains a target of numerous attacks.


New leader of SDSM (Social Democratic Union of Macedonia) Dimitar Kovacevski puts on the protective mask after receiving credentials for new government from the North Macedonia’s President in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, 29 December 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI

On January 3, in a case on Twitter, an anonymous user tweeted that Zaev had applied for unemployment benefit after his resignation. The tweet, which featured an old photo of Zaev visiting the State Employment Agency, went viral and sparked heated debate.

In another incident, on Facebook, a woman from Gevgelija, in southeast North Macedonia, was targeted by hate speech and misogynistic comments after a news portal published an article about the vast amount of books, 438 in total, that she had read in one year. Many users have gone so far as to wish her death.

Journalists facing more online aggression and threats in Serbia

“Journalists in Serbia are one of the most frequently targeted parties online. In 30 of the 111 cyber rights violations logged in our database (38 if you include investigative journalism) journalists were subjected to online abuse and intimidation – with an alarmingly high number receiving death threats,” our latest annual digital rights report Online Intimidation: Controlling the Narrative in the Balkans, notes.

Serbia has the highest rate of online attacks on journalists in the Balkans. In many cases, the motive behind these attacks seems to be to undermine independent journalism. Investigative journalists remain targeted by politicians and pro-government media outlets with the aim of concealing wrongdoing and evidence that could embarrass those in power.

Following a case on October 15, when the pro-government tabloid Informer, supported by other tabloids, published an article on Nova.rs journalist Pero Jovović, who was then sent death threats on social media due to a post in which he showed the emoticon of the flag of Kosovo, he was the subject of another episode. Over the past holidays, his Instagram profile again received numerous death threats that users sent via private messages. The cause of the online aggression is not entirely clear.

Phishing scams endemic in Romania’s digital landscape

Romania’s online environment continue to register phishing scams and other online frauds. The most populous country in the region seems particularly exposed to large-scale frauds, involving thousands of citizens.

Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism, DIICOT, already arrested several organised criminal groups that had been operating locally and internationally between November 2020 and July 2021, all active in the commission of cyber frauds, phishing and other online scams.


Mihai, senior broker, work on his desk at the Tradeville headquarters in Bucharest, Romania, 22 December 2021 (issued 30 December 2021). Photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

On January 11, Bitdefender cybersecurity experts working in one of the leading technology companies in the country warned that a phishing scam, first detected in July 2021, was now targeting email users, mainly in Romania, Croatia and Hungary.

Hackers send emails that appear to respond to messages previously sent by the users in which they pretend to have obtained their passwords and even intimate images of the users, and demand 1,200 euros in Bitcoin. According to Bitdefender, more than half of the emails addressed to Romanian users were sent from local IP addresses.

In another incident, which came to light in January, the district court of Oradea dismissed a civil suit filed in late 2020 by Calin Moldovan, the administrator of a gaming Facebook group, in which he demanded 4,000 euros in moral compensation from five other members of the “True Gamers”, who he accused of taking over the Facebook group.

The five users later posted pornographic images on the group in order to force Facebook to permanently suspend “True Gamers”.

But the court found that the plaintiff could not prove that the five defendants were behind the Facebook users involved in the hostile takeover. This decision is one of the first in which a court rules that a Facebook profile cannot be used to identify a person without reasonable suspicion and it could jeopardize future actions taken by the Romanian authorities against Facebook users.

Watchdog Marks Worrying Rise in SLAPP Cases in Croatia

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Coalition Against SLAPPS in Europe, CASE, an umbrella group uniting a range of watchdog organisations, on Thursday published a comprehensive study noting a sharp rise in SLAPP cases across Europe over the last four years – with 539 cases across Europe today, a fifth of that number lodged in 2021 alone.

According to the policy paper, “SLAPPs in Europe, How the EU Can Protect Watchdogs From Abusive Lawsuits”, Malta, Slovenia, Croatia and Ireland top the list. Malta had the hightest rate of SLAPP cases per capita, with 3 per 100,000 people, followed by Slovenia at 1.9 and Croatia at 0.6.

More than one in ten cases recorded were cross-border and half the targets noted in the study were either individual journalists or newsrooms.

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation are civil claims filed against individuals or organisations, often by businesses or government officials, against those who oppose them on issues of public concern, with a view to silencing them. They are widely seen as a a tool of “modern censorship”.

The paper quotes data compiled by the Croatian journalists’ association, HND, which recorded a total of 905 active court cases against journalist and media outlets in the country 2020 and at least 924 cases in 2021.

Of these cases in 2021, it is not clear how many are SLAPPs, but data from previous years showed that only one in ten journalists were eventually convicted or found liable for damages.

The Index.hr news outlet alone faces 65 active lawsuits. “Data from previous years showed that only one in ten journalists were eventually convicted or found liable for damages,” the policy report adds.

The fact that most SLAPP cases are lost in court does not diminish the harm they cause, the paper says, adding: “The litigation process causes the most harm, but also has an impact on society and democracy as a whole, in what has been defined as a ‘modern wave of censorship-by-litigation’.”

At the end of 2021, Croatia’s Ministry of Culture and Media organized a workshop on SLAPPs at which Zagreb County Court judge Krešimir Devcic said more than 1,100 such lawsuits had been brought, seeking over 70 million kune (almost a million euros) in damages.

“This is a critical mass of lawsuits that require an appropriate response from the judiciary. That’s why I think judges should specialise in such matters, or there should be a certain number of judges in court departments to deal with such lawsuits,” Devcic said, the news agency HINA reported.

In March 2021, a Croatian lawyer specializing in media law, Vanja Juric, who has often warned of the harmful affect of SLAPPs on the media, was elected member of the European Commission’s expert group on SLAPPs.

Both the trade union of Croatian Journalists, SNH, and the Croatian Journalists’ Association, HND, have warned about the damaging affect of SLAPPs on journalists and media.

In October 2021, HND said a businessman, Josip Stojanovic Jolly, had submitted a claim for damages of 300.000 euros against the Telegram.hr portal, claiming damage to reputation and honour caused by a published article.

As yet, no EU country has firm rules in place to stop this abuse, the paper notes. “Given the scale and nature of the problem, the EU has a responsibility to act and is in a key position to make sure governments across the EU take concrete measure to prevent and counter SLAPPs,” it states.

Bulgaria Probes Wave of Threats to Journalists, Activists, Politicians

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Prosecution in Sofia on January 12 confirmed it was investigating several cases of threats and intimidation of journalists, activists and opposition politicians.

They concern journalist Atanas Tchobanov, activist and Sofia City Councillor Boris Bonev, the “We Continue the Change” MP Hristo Petrov, as well as new Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov. 

The Sofia Prosecution said a lack of help from other state institutions had so far prevented more progress from being made.

“In order to preserve the security of the people in question, the supervising prosecutors requested information from the competent structures: the Ministry of Interior, the National Police services, the State Security Agency and the Military Intelligence Service, on whether they have data on threats against them. Unfortunately, so far, no answers to our inquiries have been received, although the cases concern exported data on crimes that could affect the lives of Bulgarian citizens,” Nevena Zartova, from the Sofia Prosecution office, said on Wednesday.

The growing attacks on media freedom in the country have also reached the parliament. b“In Bulgaria, the unreformed special services often turn their back on instances of organized crime and corruption. Investigative journalism remains the only means of investigating the ‘deep state’,” Democratic Bulgaria MP Zarko Marinov told parliament on Wednesday.

Marinov said the threats made to the journalist Atanas Tchobanov needed to be “neutralized”.  Tchobanov said through his social media he had been alerted from abroad about threats to his life.

“Last Friday, at 12:05, I received a call from an official of a foreign government who warned that I was under an immediate physical threat and by law I have to be alerted about this. The threat is said to come from Bulgaria but I’m currently abroad. I immediately informed the Bulgarian [intelligence] services who were unaware of such danger,” he wrote.

After the Prosecution in Sofia started investigating the case, Tchobanov later added that the threat most likely came “from the first row of the parliament”. 

A recent article on website bird.bg, which he co-authored, looked into alleged ties between the mainly ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms’ member, the oligarch Peevski, and American lobbyist Anthony Podesta, who has signed contracts for nearly 2 million US dollars with Peevski-affiliated companies. In 2021, Tchobanov was also involved in the “Pandora Papers” leak, which showed that Peevski had offshore assets. 

On Monday, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms called on the authorities to probe the legitimacy of Tchobanov’s claims. 

On January 9, the Association of European Journalists – Bulgaria, AEJ Bulgaria, called for a rapid investigation of the threats made to Tchobanov and other journalists.

“Due to the nature of their work, which exposes corruption and irregularities, investigative journalists are in a vulnerable position and it is the responsibility of the institutions to protect them from those interested in drowning out their voices,” it said.

One day after Tchobanov revealed the threats he was facing, the activist Boris Bonev also stated that he has been alerted about a threat to him, with this warning also coming from abroad.

Bonev heads an NGO called “Save Sofia” (Spasi Sofia), which focuses on preserving Bulgaria’s capital and is critical of the legacy of Bulgaria’s former ruling GERB party and current Sofia mayor Yordanka Fandakova.

“I’ve always suspected that our fight for a brighter Sofia might cause irritation to some shadowy and wealthy figures in Bulgaria,” wrote Bonev, who ran in the Sofia mayoral elections in 2019 as an independent and won 10.77 per cent of the vote. On January 10, the Prosecution started a probe into his claims, too. 

On December 14 last year, the Prosecution also started looking into death threats made against “We Continue the Change” member and MP and popular rapper Hristo Petrov, also known as Itzo Hazarta.

Earlier that month, in a speech in parliament, Petrov claimed he was being intimidated, without providing much information on the threat. In December, authorities were also informed about threats being made against Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov. 

On January 12, AEJ highlighted another case endangering free speech in Bulgaria.

A Sofia City Court ruling on January 8 ordered journalists Boris Mitov and Stoyana Georgieva, editor-in-chief of website Mediapool.bg, to pay 60,000 leva (around 30,000 euro) for insulting and slandering judge Svetlin Mihaylov, described as “controversial” in a 2018 article focusing on various questionable bits in his professional history and reputation. 

“The court decision not only does not comment on the fact that Mihaylov is a public figure, but also does not discuss any of the arguments of the defence”, the AEJ recalled.

“The Association of European Journalists strongly opposes attempts to intimidate journalists through judicial repression for their critical publications, which contain proven and well-known allegations,” it added.

Albania to Hire US Cybersecurity Firm After Data Breach

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Albanian government said on Tuesday that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the US-based Jones International Group, which is expected to advise on cyber security measures after the country suffered a huge data leak in late December.

The agreement with the Virginia-based Jones International Group was made public through a decision by Albania’s Council of Ministers but no details of tender procedures or the costs involved were disclosed.

“This is just an agreement of understanding in which the parties agree that they will work with each other. The other documents [contracts] will become known in the future,” the spokesperson at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, Florian Serjani, told BIRN on Tuesday when asked about the cost.

When asked what was the basis upon which the company was chosen, Serjani said that “we have experience with this company because they have worked with the OST [Albania’s transmission system operator]”.

The Jones International Group, which provides cyber security, energy, telecommunications and political consulting services and products, is run by James Logan Jones, a former US Navy general and former US National Security Advisor. Jones was also the US supreme allied commander in Europe.

The Minister of Infrastructure and Energy, Belinda Balluku, met Jones on Monday and said that he has “expressed readiness to cooperate with the Albanian government for cyber protection, as one of the companies with the greatest experience in the US and Europe”.

Quoted by local media on Tuesday, Jonas said he feels honoured to help Albania in “cyberwar.”

“…There is a clear and obvious danger…”, he was quoted as saying.

The US company, which according to the official data was established in July 2020,  plans a strategy of how to install multilayer protective systems to prevent cyberattacks in a country where people can find more than 90 per cent of their public administration services online.

Jones has previous connections with Albania. In 2019, while working as US National Security Advisor, in Albania he met the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran, MEK, a controversial Iranian opposition group that has been sheltered by Albania since 2013. He has been presented as a longtime supporter of the Iranian resistance, especially the members of the MEK in Iraq.

At a NATO conference on security challenges facing technology two years ago in Tirana, he warned Albania to be vigilant about China offering to provide 5G technology.

After the huge data leak in December, the Tirana prosecution started checking a list allegedly containing the personal data of hundreds of thousands of Albanian citizens which was circulated on WhatsApp. Four people are under investigation over the leak.

It was alleged that the data contained the monthly salaries, job positions, employer names and ID numbers of some 630,000 citizens, from both the public and private sectors.

Another data leak of salaries for the month of April was released and circulated via WhatsApp one day later.

It was followed by a further data leak that contained private information about citizens’ vehicle number plates.

In April 2021, a few days before elections in the country, a database with the private information of around 910,000 voters in Tirana was leaked to the media.

It was claimed that the database belonged to the ruling Socialist Party and was taken from state institutions and used for electoral purposes.

The database, which BIRN has seen, included names, addresses, birth dates, personal ID cards, employment information and other data.

The Socialist Party denied wrongdoing, insisting that the information was gathered in door-in-door surveys. The case is still with the prosecution.

European Court Rules Against Bulgaria Over Secret Surveillance

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled on Tuesday in favour of two lawyers who claimed that under the system of secret surveillance in Bulgaria, the communications of anyone in the country can be intercepted and accessed by the authorities.

The two lawyers, Mihail Ekimdzhiev and Aleksandar Kashamov, complained that the laws governing the interception and retention of surveillance data do not provide sufficient safeguards against arbitrary or abusive surveillance and accessing of the data.

Ekimdzhiev and Kashamov also argued that Bulgaria’s National Bureau for Control of Special Means of Surveillance operates with limited transparency, and that there is no effective remedy if there are abuses.

Neither claimed that they had been put under secret surveillance, but argued that the nature of their activities put them at risk of being put under surveillance and therefore of having their communications data accessed by the authorities.

The Strasbourg-based court ruled that Bulgaria had violated the right to respect for private life and correspondence under the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to secret surveillance and to the retention and accessing of communications data.

“The system of overseeing secret surveillance in Bulgaria as it was currently organised did not appear capable of providing effective guarantees against abusive surveillance,” it said in a statement.

The court also said that the independence of the National Bureau for Control of Special Means of Surveillance “could not be guaranteed, particularly as its members were given prior vetting by an agency whose requests they were meant to oversee”.

The court also noted that there are limited ways in which people subjected to surveillance can find out about the process or request information about it.

“Ultimately, the court held that the relevant legislation governing secret surveillance, especially as applied in practice, did not meet the quality-of-law requirement of the [European] Convention and was unable to keep surveillance to only that which was necessary,” it added

Bulgaria was ordered to pay 3,290.69 euros in costs and expenses.

Kashamov is a well-known legal expert at the NGO Access to Information, dealing with ​​human rights, administrative, civil, criminal and commercial issues.

In 2001, he represented the first-ever cases over discrimination in Bulgaria, and later was head of the Commission on Journalistic Ethics.

Last year, Kashamov sought to raise awareness of how local authorities are dealing with sensitive personal data during COVID-19 and criticised how the European Arrest Warrant, a cross-border judicial surrender procedure, is being implemented in violation of European law.

Ekimdzhiev is also a well-known lawyer. In 1998, he became the founder of the Association for European Integration and Human Rights NGO. Under the umbrella of the organisation, he has been conducting public interest cases and providing free legal aid, as well as training lawyers and journalists in the field of human rights.

Both Kashamov and Ekimdzhiev have criticised Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev and called for judicial reform in Bulgaria.

Bulgaria has seen several high-profile surveillance cases recently. They included President Rumen Radev being wiretapped by the prosecution in 2020 and the authorities allegedly eavesdropping on protesters and opposition leaders during a wave of protests the same year.

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