Month: March 2023

Attacks on Critical Journalists’ Property in Bosnia’s Banja Luka Condemned

Posted on by BIRD

The Delegation of the European Union to Bosnia and Herzegovina has condemned the attacks on the vehicles of two journalists from Banja Luka, a day after they criticised a law that threatens freedom of speech.

The attacks on the cars of two journalists from Banja Luka, administrative centre of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity, discovered early on March 9, a day after they criticised a new law on defamation, was “extremely worrying,” the Delegation stated. 

Nikola Moraca, journalist of EruoBlic and SrpskaInfo, and Aleksandar Trifunovic, editor-in-chief of online magazine Buka, found their cars damaged in the same neighbourhood where they both live. 

“It is yet another example of the difficult conditions that journalists in Bosnia and Herzegovina operate in, and the ongoing hostile environment for media freedom in the country,” the EU office added. 

A day prior to the attack, Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik slammed those who criticised a proposed law which would criminalise defamation, imposing huge financial fines, naming several individuals, including Moraca and Trifunovic. 

“This is a typical attempt at intimidation; the day after Dodik called us scoundrels and marked targets, it was only a matter of time before someone would interpret this as an instruction,” Trifunovic posted on Twitter after discovering the damage. 

“Verbal attacks by political leaders that seek to discredit journalists can also contribute to increased hostility and risks for them,” the UN mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina wrote on Twitter, among many reactions by local and international human rights and media organisations.

Dodik, president of Republika Srpska, condemned the attack on Thursday but also suggested they had “organised” the damage to their cars themselves.

“The government is asking for an imminent police reaction and prosecution of the perpetrators,” he said, adding in the same sentence: “There are some indications that they have organised the attack by themselves, and we will see if it is correct or not.” 

“So the investigation has not officially even begun, and Dodik seems to want to help solve the case by accusing us,” Trifunovic shared on social media on Thursday evening. 

The EU Delegation recalled that freedom of expression and freedom of media are among 14 key reform priorities for Bosnia, as stated in the European Commission’s Opinion on the country’s EU membership application.

“In any democratic society, journalists must be able to do their important work without fear or intimidation,” the EU office said. 

CoE Platform Records Continued Degradation in Press Freedom in 2022

Posted on by BIRD

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine occurred against the backdrop of a continued degradation in press freedom across Europe in 2022 and it has had far-reaching consequences for the continent’s journalism, according to the annual report published by the Council of Europe Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists.

The platform, which through alerts submitted by partner organisations seeks to document the serious threats to the safety of journalists and media freedom in Europe, said in its report published on Tuesday that 289 alerts were posted in 2022 concerning 37 countries, a figure comparable to that of 2021, which saw 282 alerts.

At one end of the scale, apart from the 12 journalists and media workers who died on active duty covering Russia’s war in Ukraine, the platform recorded one journalist killed in the exercise of their work, Gungor Arslan in Turkey, compared to four who died the previous year outside of a war zone. Yet there was a 60 per cent rise to 127 in the number of journalists in prison at the end of 2022 in Europe.

At the other end of the scale, continuing unabated were the harassment and smear campaigns, both online and offline, targeting journalists; the rise in surveillance; the continued use of abusive court proceedings; and the use of the war as ammunition for governments trying to restrict journalists’ right to report on matters considered national security.

Harassment, intimidation and smear campaigns have become a “new normal” up to the point that some journalists no longer even report them, noted the report titled “War in Europe and the Fight for the Right to Report”. A total of 94 alerts were posted on the platform, compared with 110 in 2021. The highest number of cases were recorded in Russia, but also in Serbia, Italy, Poland, Croatia and Greece.

“Press freedom in Europe continues to be undermined by restrictive legislation,” Flutura Kusari, senior legal advisor for the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) told a press conference. “Surveillance, the fight against disinformation, legislation on state secrets or the fight against terrorism are all used to pressure journalists.”

This is the third year that the annual report has dedicated a chapter to the rising use of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) and other legal actions aimed at intimidating and silencing journalists, which have become a favourite tool of powerful individuals and corporations. At least 20 defamation and other types of legal proceedings were documented against journalists in 2022, with hundreds of thousands of euros sought in damages in the name of reputational harm.

The European Commission published a directive last year in which it tasked the Council of the EU and European Parliament to develop anti-SLAPP legislation to protect journalists, activists, academics, and others from legal battles intended to stop their work. “Now is the time for member states to start taking actions against SLAPPS,” said Kusari.

The threats posed to journalists and their sources from surveillance increased in 2022 as fresh allegations and evidence emerged about the abuse of sophisticated spyware tools by governments in the region.

Particularly noteworthy cases occurred in Hungary, where investigations continued into the use of Pegasus by state intelligence agencies to surveil at least five journalists and media owners. And in Greece, 2022 saw the emergence of a new spyware product, Predator, with revelations about its use to surveil journalist Thanasis Koukakis, as well as leading politicians. On November 6, in yet another development of what is being called the “Greek Watergate”, the newspaper Documento published an article alleging that numerous journalists, media owners and figures connected to the Greek media industry were among persons targeted with Predator.

New Pegasus Target Identified in Poland

Posted on by BIRD

Jacek Karnowski, currently mayor of Sopot on Poland’s Baltic Sea coast, was monitored by state surveillance in 2018-2019 when he was one of the key politicians promoting an opposition alliance to win the Senate elections, according to Friday’s daily Gazeta Wyborcza. (The united opposition did win the Senate in 2019).

“This is a violation of privacy and human dignity,” Karnowski told Wyborcza in response to the revelations. “Those who monitored their political opponents should be brought before the Tribunal of the State.”

Wyborcza says it found Karnowski’s name on a list of monitored individuals made available to multiple media outlets that were part of the Pegasus Project consortium.

According to the paper, the Polish Central Anti-Corruption Bureau CBA tapped Karnowski’s phone 10 to 20 times between 2018 and 2019.

It is impossible to say what data the services took from Karnowski’s phone, Wyborcza reports, because the device was “cleaned up” of data.

In Poland, secret services are obliged to delete data they collect if they do not uncover or confirm a crime during the investigation.

Karnowski is currently head of an alliance of mayors that is a major actor in the coalition of liberal opposition parties confronting the ruling PiS in this year’s parliamentary elections, due in the autumn.

Polish intelligence services used Pegasus until November 2021, after which the Israeli company producing the software, NSO Group, did not renew its contracts with either Poland or Hungary.

This followed media revelations that these two governments used the spyware to monitor journalists and opposition politicians.

Stung by Criticism, Turkey’s Erdogan Targets Free Speech as Elections Loom

Posted on by BIRD

According to the Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA, at least two journalists were arrested, five detained, four placed under investigation and 12 physically attacked while reporting on the earthquake response between February 6 and 27.

Another 14 were expelled from the affected area by security forces and three TV channels that aired reports criticising the response were fined.

Murat Mumtaz Kok, MLSA communications and project director, said that, “on the very first day”, the General Directorate of Security and the president’s Directorate of Communications began issuing warnings against the spread of ‘disinformation’.

“Unfortunately, it seems that from the beginning the government had priorities other than saving people from under the rubble,” Kok told BIRN. “The very cries of people who lost their homes and their loved ones and asked a very fundamental question, ‘Where is the state?’ were immediately criminalised.”

Arrests, fines

An aerial picture taken with a drone shows the rubble of collapsed buildings in the city of Kahramanmaras, southeastern Turkey, 08 February 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/ABIR SULTAN

Kok cited the case of Mehmet Gules, a journalist with Mesopotamia News Agency who was taken into custody in the southeastern town of Diyarbakir two days after the earthquakes after he interviewed a search and rescue volunteer who complained that the state’s chief emergency response bodies were not on the ground.

Gules and the volunteer were accused of stirring “hatred and hostility” among the public; after hours in custody, there were released but banned from leaving Turkey on suspicion of “openly disseminating information misleading the public.”

“This and many other examples as well as Mr President’s explicit threats and insults show that the self-preservation of those in power is more important than the preservation of those who still spend their days mostly out in the open and in freezing conditions,” Kok said.

On February 22, Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council, RTUK, the state agency that monitors and sanctions radio and television broadcasts, fined three TV channels – Fox TV, Halk TV and Tele 1 – between three and five per cent of their monthly advertising revenue due to the critical tone of their coverage. A number of specific programmes were temporarily suspended from broadcasting.

“It truly is heart-breaking that in the aftermath of such a catastrophe, the primary target of the governing alliance remains to be the editorial independence of news organisations, and more generally media freedom and the society’s right to access information,” said Gurkan Ozturan, Media Freedom Rapid Response coordinator at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.

Threat to free elections

A woman shows to her child a picture of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul, Turkey, 18 January 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/ERDEM SAHIN

The authorities have not stopped only at traditional media.

Also on February 22, popular social media platform Eksi Sozluk – known as Turkey’s Reddit – was blocked by the government and accused of “spreading misinformation about the earthquake”.

The platform said it would challenge the decision in court.

Complaining again about “misinformation”, the government also restricted access to Twitter and TikTok and slowed down the Internet. Access was restored the next day following a public outcry, with critics accusing the government of cutting off vital communications channels for survivors, relatives of those who died, and aid campaigners.

So far, police say 441 people have been investigated, 129 people detained and 24 people jailed over “provocative posts on social media platforms concerning the earthquakes in order to create fear and panic among the citizens.”

The crackdown is in line with the government’s ever tighter control over media and Internet freedoms under Erdogan via several draconian laws and regulations.

With elections a matter of months away, experts fear authorities will pursue the crackdown further under the cover of the state of emergency declared after the earthquakes.

“When we see such threats, detention of journalists, throttling of access to Twitter and fines being imposed on the TV stations as well as censorship orders targeting minority publications, it hardly looks solely like an attempt to manipulate the discourse around disaster management but raises suspicions whether this is a move from an election-focused perspective,” Ozturan told BIRN.

The logo of Twitter is seen on a smartphone held besides a Turkish flag. Photo: EPA/Karl-Josef Hildenbrand

Pollsters say Erdogan and his government, already facing a significant challenge to their hold on power, are likely to see a further drop in popularity due to their handling of the earthquake response.

“Considering the threats and actions that have taken place so far, there are no guarantees that these restrictions and violations will not take place during the election period, before, during or after the Election Day, also under the light of the ongoing state of emergency in the region, Ozturan warned.

Kok, from the MLSA, agreed: “The fact that freedom of expression – which was literally used to hang on for dear life – is considered by the government to be an existential threat makes the picture all the more bleak” in the context of imminent elections.

“Millions of people forced to stay in almost completely destroyed cities and which are now under a state of emergency will be expected to make an informed decision at a time when those in power now have all ‘legal’ grounds to cut off the flow of information if that information is deemed dangerous by those in power.”

Albania Election Commission Calls on Socialists to Explain New App

Posted on by BIRD

Ilirjan Celibashi, head of Albania’s Central Elections Commission, CEC, said on Wednesday that it is seeking explanations from the ruling Socialist Party about an app, “Aktiv1st”, which it has offered, following queries from the opposition and civic groups.

“We have received a request from the Democratic Party regarding this matter and are evaluating what this app implies in relation to the law or the behaviour of the owner in relation to the electoral code”, he said.

He added that the CEC is only looking into the app regarding the electoral code, and not other laws – meaning that the CEC is not looking into laws such as the law for data protection.

“I believe that by next week we will have a decision or an evaluation from the CEC regarding this issue,” Celibashi concluded.

The Socialist Party presented the app a year ago as a “tool of communication” for party activists. The users win points by engaging with its content, including new stories that redirect users to the Facebook and Instagram pages of Socialist officials.

The app appears to be a means of raising the social media profile of the Socialist Party, which faces local elections in mid-May.

Critics in the past have drawn attention to the party’s use of such technology to gather data on would-be voters and manipulate social media.

They are suspicious of the latest app, citing a lack of specific Terms of Service and indications that it may not be as “voluntary” as the party insists.

As BIRN previously reported, some have seized on the Aktiv1st app as the latest way for the Socialist Party to exploit the public sector for its own electoral benefit, in a country where the state administration is widely seen as the fief of the party in power.

Aktiv1st is available for download from Play Store and App store; in a section explaining data safety, it is specified that photos, videos, files, documents, and other IDs may be shared with other companies or organisations, while the app may collect user data including location, email address, home address, phone number, and messages.

Clicking on the Terms of Service redirects the user to the Law on Data Protection, without explaining the app’s specific terms. The user must click that they accept the terms in order to use the app.

A civil society organisation called Civic Resistance, which works on issues of transparency, education, youths and politics in Tirana, has lodged a complaint with the Commission for Data Protection and the Right to Information.

BIRD Community

Are you a professional journalist or a media worker looking for an easily searchable and comprehensive database and interested in safely (re)connecting with more than thousands of colleagues from Southeastern and Central Europe?

We created BIRD Community, a place where you can have it all!

Join Now