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Arrested on April 11 while trying to report on the fight against COVID-19, a prominent journalist in the mainly Serb north of Kosovo says local authorities have stepped up pressure on her outlet since the onset of the pandemic.
Tatjana Lazarevic, editor-in-chief of the online news portal KosSev, was detained by police on the road from the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica/Mitrovice to nearby Zvecan, where she planned to go to the local health centre to investigate what she said were “multiple complaints” about its readiness to deal with cases of the novel coronavirus.
“It is very difficult to get official information,” Lazarevic, 50, told BIRN.
She was accused of violating a weekend curfew imposed to slow the spread of the disease, despite the fact that, under rules in Kosovo, journalists are exempt from the movement restrictions. Released after several hours without charge, Lazarevic said she suspects the episode was the latest attempt to intimidate KosSev by those who run northern Kosovo.
“I believe that there is a visible intention to create a profile picture of our media as an enemy of the state, an enemy of the people, that we are an enemy of the government,” Lazarevic told BIRN.
That state is Serbia, which continues to hold sway in northern Kosovo more than 20 years after the majority-Albanian territory broke away in war and 12 years since it declared independence with the backing of the West.
The public health system in northern Kosovo continues to function, de facto at least, as part of the Serbian health system, reflected in the fact that COVID-19 tests in the north are processed in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Serbia does not recognise Kosovo as independent.
Pandemic brings more pressure
KosSev was formed in 2014 as an online news portal covering primarily northern Kosovo.
According to Lazarevic, who grew up in Mitrovica/Mitrovice, the site aims to provide properly-reported, impartial and objective information, not necessarily exposés. But in Kosovo, particularly the north, that is enough to invite trouble.
In its short life, KosSev and its small staff has faced cyber-attacks, threats and pressure on a regular basis. And it has recently become worse, Lazarevic said.
“This last phase of pressure has intensified since the start of the pandemic,” she told BIRN.
On Saturday, Lazarevic set out on foot for Zvecan, hoping to see “on the spot” the work of the Zvecan health clinic but also to see the extent of police security along the road during the curfew. Other people were also on the road.
A police car passed her three times. The third time, it slowed down and Lazarevic approached, believing the officers wanted to see her ID. But the car moved on.
“When I was completely alone,” she said, “a van of the [police] intervention unit suddenly appeared. Through an open window, they said, ‘Good afternoon, you have violated the medical prohibition on movement’.” Ten minutes later, Lazarevic entered the vehicle and was taken to the police station.
Lazarevic said she tried to explain to the officers that she was out conducting her work as a journalist and to show them her press credentials. She was released after a couple of hours without being given any further information.
The mainly Serb north of Kosovo is controlled by Srpska Lista, which answers to Serbia’s ruling Progressive Party.
While relations with the Kosovo government in Pristina are far from rosy, she said, the threat comes from the north. Lazarevic described them as “friendly visits” – from a torched KosSev car in 2015 to direct threats, hacks and a wall of silence among public institutions.
“Srpska Lista controls all the power or all the political life of Serbs in Kosovo,” she said.
As Turkey, like the rest of the world, struggles with the coronavirus pandemic, its government plans to take another step to further restrict digital rights in the country.
A draft law will create new responsibilities for answering the government’s demands on their content for social media giants such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and popular messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger.
The law on social media was dropped from the parliamentary schedule on Tuesday to make way for more urgent bills on the economy and health amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But civil society groups and opposition parties fear it will be back before long.
Human rights watchdogs, experts and the opposition suspect the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is using the coronavirus crisis to place further controls over social media.
Experts warn that the planned measures would have serious consequences for tech companies’ activities, and may result in some leaving the country.
The draft law on social media has been sent to the business world and unions for consultation, but the opposition is sure it will come back to parliament soon.
“Erdogan’s intention is to close down the social media with this draft law. They will try to bring the draft law [back to parliament] at the first possible chance,” Garo Paylan, an MP from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, HDP, told the media on Tuesday.
Emre Kursat Kaya, a security analyst with the Istanbul-based Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, EDAM, says times of pandemics are usually compared to wartime periods for a reason.
“People are pushed to make a choice between their individual freedoms and more security from public authorities. Most of the time, it is the latter that prevails. Not many questions are asked and debates around issues are mostly avoided as the crisis requires rapid responses,” Kaya told BIRN.
New law creates long list of obligations
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, Turkey, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/STR
The draft law obliges foreign social media companies with high internet traffic to appoint an official representative in Turkey to answer authorities’ demands concerning the content on their platforms.
Companies will need to respond to communications from the authorities about their content within 72 hours and compile and notify officials of all removed or blocked content in three-month periods, the draft law says.
More importantly, the companies will also be asked to store data belonging to Turkish users within the country.
If they fail to respond to official requests within 72 hours, they will face penalties up to 135 million euros. Companies that do not compile the removed or blocked content, or do not store data in Turkey, could be fined up to 675 million euros.
The draft law also says that companies that do not follow the government’s new rules could face having their bandwidth halved after 30 days by a court order, and then reduced by 95 per cent if they continue to flout the rules for another 30 days.
“The Turkish authorities have long demanded to have official representatives of online service providers,” Kaya noted.
“This demand was linked to a wish to accelerate the removal of unlawful content from online platforms. But even without having a representative in Turkey, these platforms tend to respond to removal requests quite rapidly, and faster than the 72 hours expected by the text,” he added.
Kaya said the first two aspects of the proposed law would not have such a big impact on how fast content is deleted, but “will only add another layer of pressure on online service providers by taking their representatives as responsible”.
He added: “What’s more worrying … is the third aspect, which basically requires data localization from online service providers.
“This is highly problematic as there is no precedent of such action from these global companies and this could result in them simply leaving the Turkish market,” he continued.
Companies may quit market rather than obey
Two Turkish women try to get connected to the Twitter in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo: EPA/TOLGA BOZOGLU
Taylan Yıldız, a former Google analyst and member of the Istanbul Municipal Council from the opposition Good Party, said that the draft law has many open-ended articles, and it will mostly affect people with pro-opposition ideas and opposition parties.
In March alone, 433 Turkish citizens were detained because for social media posts that allegedly spread fake or manipulative news on the coronavirus pandemic.
At least four people were arrested or fined for their social media posts, including Fikri Saglar, a former lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP.
A legal investigation was also started against Omer Gergerlioglu, an HDP MP, because of his social media posts on the effect of the pandemic on Turkey’s overcrowded prisons.
Yildiz said that if social media companies withdraw operations from the country, “Turkey will become introverted and will face a disconnection with the rest of the world”.
Turkey previously blocked several social media companies because of their refusals to delete some content.
Court rulings blocked Twitter several times in 2014, though the ban was later lifted following an agreement between Twitter and the government.
As of 2018, Twitter reported that the Turkish government accounted for more than 52 per cent of all content removal requests worldwide; Twitter only answered 4 per cent of the government’s requests.
Turkey also banned the social information platform Wikipedia for more than two-and-a-half years because of content that the government wanted removed. In a surprise decision, the Constitutional Court lifted the ban on January 15, 2020.
“If the legislation passes as it stands, the main issue for social media providers will be the demand for data localization. This is practically impossible, as it would mean an additional financial burden and unavoidable security risks for these companies,” Kaya, from EDAM, said.
He said the demand for data localization was not unique to Turkey, so if companies concede it to Turkey, they will face pressure to do the same for many other countries. “Sadly, this will probably result in many of them leaving the Turkish market,” he predicted.
The worldwide online payments system PayPal ceased all of its operations in Turkey for similar issues in 2016. “Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp could follow in PayPal’s footsteps and disable the use their applications in Turkey,” Kaya concluded.
The US ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, on Tuesday in Washington said North Macedonia, which joined the alliance this year, will receive similar assistance to other member countries in dealing with fake news from Russia, North Macedonia’s state-owned MIA news agency reported.
“The alliance expects more info from Skopje on setting up such a team in North Macedonia, aimed at preparing media in the country on how to deter disinformation campaigns from Russia,” MIA quoted Hutchison as saying.
She added that a lot of fake news was being spread in North Macedonia about the coronavirus and that NATO assistance was needed to deal with it.
The ambassador called on NATO allies to combat disinformation on the coronavirus coming from Russia – and also from China.
“There are false reports that they [Russia and China] are sending assistance, there are false reports that the virus emerged from Europe or the United States. This is absolutely false and we are trying to respond with facts,” she told the press briefing.
Russia has strongly opposed NATO expansion into the Balkan region. Montenegro became the 29th member state in 2017 despite open opposition from Moscow, and has since been on the receiving end of cyber attacks assumed to come from Russia. For some years it has hosted a team of American cyber experts who are helping the fight against cyber threats.
North Macedonia became NATO’s 30th member in March this year. Hutchison remarked that the country has been a target of disinformation from Russia ever since it applied for membership, adding that these threats have continued since it joined NATO.
After drawing flak from journalistic and media associations for employing an unsuitable register of online media to select which outlets should get permits to work during curfews and ask questions at press conferences, the Information Society Ministry says it had rectified any omissions.
This ministry, which is in charge of issuing these online permits, says media outlets are now being checked directly through the country’s central registry of firms, not through a register of online media created for a different purpose by the country’s oldest and biggest media union.
Amid complaints from the Association of Journalists of Macedonia, ZNM, that the ministry had more or less hijacked its register and misused its purpose, the ministry told BIRN that its only intention had been to prevent the spread of “fake news” in the health crisis.
However, some pro-opposition online media outlets still accuse the authorities of discrimination and “silent” censorship, saying they are put in an unequal position compared to others at virtual press conferences.
Use of media register drew flak
The dispute started in late March, when the ministry issued a statement saying that only those outlets listed on the ZNM’s register of professional online media, Promedia, would be eligible to apply for permits to work during the daily curfews.
The same rule applied to outlets wanting to ask questions at government press conferences, which were already being held without the physical presence of journalists, who were only able to ask direct questions through a video conference call, or submit them online to the government press service and wait for them to be read out by the spokesperson and answered by ministers.
The ZNM and the Council of Ethics in Media, SEMM, a self-regulatory journalistic body, accused the government of using the register to select favoured online media.
The ZNM’s executive director, Dragan Sekulovski, told BIRN that the purpose of Promedia had been misused. The register of some 120 online media outlets “was intended to promote self-regulation and professional standards, help citizens distinguish professional online outlets from propagandists and fake news sites and incentivise businesses to advertise in professional outlets”, Sekulovski explained to BIRN.
“The OSCE, the US embassy and the European Union praised us for our efforts to put some order in the online media sphere. It was not fair of the state to interfere [with it] and use the [health] crisis as an excuse,” he said.
He noted that the register was never intended to be an all-encompassing media source. Media participate in it voluntarily; those who wish to be listed on it first apply and are then their basic professional and ethical standards are checked.
While Promedia lists 120 listed outlets, the state’s central business registry lists more than 400 online media outlets.
The Promedia registry notably does not include many pro-opposition outlets that formerly defended the ex-government of Nikola Gruevski, which fell in mid-2017, and continue to promote the standpoints of his now opposition VMRO DPMNE party.
Most of these are now grouped in the country’s other journalistic union, the Macedonian Association of Journalists, MAN, which was formed during Gruevski’s time in office and has also accused the current Social Democrat-led government of using double standards.
Ministry says it had no ill intent
Journalist, members of North Macedonia’s government and guests in the government press room. Archive photo: EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI
After prolonged silence in the face of this criticism, the State Secretary at the Information Society Ministry, Adem Avziu, told BIRN on Friday that its intention had not been to discriminate against any particular online media but only to “prevent the spread of fake news and panic in this extraordinary situation.
“We all know we have many unregistered portals that are spreading all kinds of false info amid this crisis, so our intent was to prevent this,” Avziu said.
He claimed that any mistakes made earlier had now been fixed. “Control measures have now been significantly boosted. All media now apply and fill in forms on one address, at uslugi.gov.mk, and permits are issued after their data has been checked through the database of the central business registry,” he said.
Opposition outlets still cry foul
The enduring divisions between media in North Macedonia are a legacy of Gruevski’s authoritarian government’s decade-plus in office.
On one side are media that gravitate towards the ZNM, and are trying to restore professional standards and strengthen self-regulation in the media sphere. Some of them are now outlets that defend the Social Democrats-led government.
On the other side are Gruevski’s former megaphones, who received large sums in the form of government advertisements while he was in power and who formed the parallel journalists’ association MAN, which at the time was seeking to overshadow the ZNM. Most of these media have continued to support the VMRO DPMNE party in opposition and attack anyone that the party deems an enemy.
These media were asked to sign the journalistic code of ethics and join the media register created by the ZNM but have not done so.
Kurir is among the most prominent of such online outlets, and managed to survive Gruevski’s downfall in 2017, largely thanks to its recent takeover by Hungarian firms linked to Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s PR machinery, and the subsequent inflow of Hungarian advertisement money.
But despite the ministry’s insistence that it has now fixed the problem with the permits, the editor-in-chief of Kurir, Ljupco Cvetanovski, said that his outlet still feels discriminated against.
Cvetanovski told BIRN that the current form of censorship was “maybe not so evident and public as was first intended with the registry [of online media], but we still feel some form of censorship”.
While conceding that his site no longer encountered any problems with getting permits to work during the curfews, he said the way press conferences are being held did not allow them to ask direct questions through video link, like some other media, while questions submitted electronically often never get answered.
“We submit several questions daily [to the government press service] but only one of our questions has ever been read out at press conferences and answered,” Cvetanovski claimed.
He added that in this way the government was elegantly dodging “tough” questions – or at least giving itself more time to prepare suitable answers in advance.
A decision by Greek Prime Minister Kuriakos Mitsotakis’ secretary-general to commit 11 million euros from the national budget to an urgent publicity campaign that will run until the end of May to promote measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 has raised alarm among opposition MPs.
Urgent legislation was already introduced on March 11, obliging TV and radio stations to regularly broadcast short public health messages for free.
Another piece of legislation on March 30 suspended payments for six television companies of the annual fees they pay for nationwide licences to broadcast.
As each of them was due to pay 3.5 million euros in 2020, this year’s loss of income would be up to 21 million euros. The content of the legislation is vague and it remains unclear if, when and how the suspended fees will be paid in the future.
The decisions have raised criticism among opposition MPs that the government is using the COVID-19 measures to improve its relations with the media without transparency.
More concerns were raised when the contract to implement the 11-million-euro publicity campaign was directly awarded to a private company with a three per cent commission on the total amount, which amounts to 330,000 euros. The criteria for how media outlets will be chosen to carry the publicity material and what amounts of money will be distributed to the chosen media outlets have also not been made public.
On top of this, the implementation of the programme by a private company removes the responsibility to upload information on the allocation of funds to the public transparency registry, which would have been necessary if the government had decided to implement the programme without an intermediary.
“There are a number of pertinent questions around this campaign that the government will have to answer,” veteran MP Sofia Sakorafa from the Mera 25 party told BIRN.
“Why is this campaign necessary if media are already obliged to broadcast free messages and they are reporting on COVID-19 from early morning till late at night anyway? How was the implementing partner chosen, using which criteria and out of what other companies? Since we are talking about public funds, which state or independent authority will examine which allocations [are made] and under what criteria they happened? Is there going to be transparency so we all learn which media were funded and with how much?”
An urgent meeting of the Greek parliament’s Transparency Committee discussed the issues on April 10. Answering questions regarding the direct award to a private company as well as the suspension of TV licence payments, government spokesperson Stelios Petsas responded that “if we held a tender we would need at least six months” before starting the campaign, which would be completely inefficient.
Greek Parliament building in Syntagma square and the empty streets of the capital city of Athens, Greece, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREAS TSAKNARIDIS
He also insisted that in the end, the amounts given to media companies under the programme will be made public and that TV licenses fees would be paid in full.
But Syriza MP Nikos Voutsis, who was president of the Greek parliament from Oct 2015 to July 2019, told BIRN that the answers were less than satisfying.
“Due to past experience we know the government can bring in an urgent amendment anytime and exempt TV channels from paying these obligations. The future will prove what the intentions of the government are on this issue. Until then, this suspension is a small first gift,” Voutsis said.
But the lack of scrutiny over the 11-million-euro campaign is an even bigger problem, he argued.
“The big issue is that they are evading the obligation to publish the information on the transparency registry. The spokesperson has not taken any step back, it’s not a practical issue but a political choice, since the previous government had put in place a transparent process to distribute ten million euros of support funding to the press,” he said.
“We believe this is a process that should only take place with bipartisan cooperation and consensus based on the existing media registry [of outlets that can receive state funding],” he added.
The Greek press’s circulation has collapsed since COVID-19 lockdown measures were introduced. To contain the downward trend, owners and employees’ associations asked for newspapers to be circulated through supermarket chains – a move to which the government agreed at the end of March.
Illustration. Photo: EPA-EFE/ORESTIS PANAGIOTOU
The association of regional newspapers has asked that 30 per cent of the 11-million-euro package is committed to the regional press. It also claimed that urgent advertising bought by regional municipalities around the country “is not following any of the criteria envisaged by the law”.
According to the law, public funding should follow certain criteria based on circulation and readership as well as the income of each media outlet being funded, in order to protect pluralism and objectivity and avoid influence.
Meanwhile, according to experts, TV viewing ratings have increased by 25 per cent since the lockdown, and bymore than 60 per cent among four-to-17-year-olds, but profits are estimated to have plummeted by 30 per cent since mid-February.
Greek journalist Yannis-Orestis Papadimitriou, a member of an investigative journalists’ consortium called The Manifold, told BIRN that transparency is the key issue that must be addressed.
“Support for the media is necessary, but distributing money in a habitat like that of the Greek media, which is notorious for its lack of transparency and clientelistic relations, without making clear immediately who gets what and why, is a very serious issue,” Papadimitriou said.
He argued that without transparency, no matter how much support is given, the big issues that shape the media situation in Greece won’t be addressed.
“There is no excuse for a lack of transparency in distributing funds from the government to a media landscape that was already largely abstaining from contesting the government’s actions, even before the coronavirus crisis,” he said.
“It is even more worrying when that happens in a situation in which media, their owners, who are also involved in other sectors of the economy, and the political class have proved to be co-dependent in many ways,” he added.
Tweets by a more than 8,000-strong ‘troll army’ promoting Serbia’s ruling party and President Aleksandar Vucic regularly found their way into news stories published by Serbian media in the last couple of years before Twitter took them down last month.
Twitter deleted 8,558 accounts engaged in “inauthentic coordinated activity” – some 43 million tweets criticising the Serbian opposition, independent media and individuals critical of Vucic and his Progressive Party rule.
But the bots were not alone.
Analysing just five of the thousands of accounts, BIRN found their tweets were embedded in stories published by the likes of pro-government tabloids Informer, Kurir and Espreso at least 23 times, suggesting the total number across the network may run into the hundreds.
The tweets were often presented as supporting evidence of the unpopularity of Vucic’s opponents; others were picked up by both Serbian and Russian media as proof of the popularity of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the time of his red-carpet visit to the Serbian capital, Belgrade, in January 2019.
“Weighing in on Twitter disputes and dogpiling onto opposition tweets did not just alter the Twitter landscape in favor of SNS-aligned figures and to the detriment of the opposition,” the Stanford Internet Observatory, a US-based research, teaching and policy program that looks at abuse of information technologies, particularly social media, said in a report in early April.
“In some cases, these tweets would get taken up by web publications as “organic” critical content,” it said, noting that some stories cited tweets from multiple accounts in the network.
In the April 2 report, “Fighting Like a Lion for Serbia”: An Analysis of Government-linked Operations in Serbia, the Observatory said that another important function of the deleted accounts was to “push out links to content on SNS-aligned news websites,” including sns.org.rs and vucic.rs [the official websites of SNS and Vucic, respectively], as well as media outlets such as informer.rs, alo.rs and pink.rs, all staunchly pro-Vucic.
The report, for example, cited a tweet by the editor-in-chief of Informer, Dragan Vucicevic, in which he criticised opposition politician Borko Stefanovic. The tweet was replied to 64 times by the troll accounts.
“This kind of propagation suggests that the network’s influence extended beyond Twitter—although it is impossible to assess the extent of this influence with much precision,” the Observatory wrote.
Snjezana Milivojevic, professor of Public Opinion and Media Studies at Belgrade’s Faculty of Political Sciences, said the Twitter bots and pro-government media were “parts of the same strategy”.
“The Internet is a large free space, so, by directing attention, bots help to prevent the dispersal of the public and help friendly media such as Informer, Pink and Alo to function as a well-run factory of the same fake news,” Milivojevic told BIRN.
Network built to boost retweets and reply counts
Some of the tweets that ended up in mainstream media such as Epreso, Kurir, Informer and other media outlets. “Local government in Cajetina put a mortgage on a parcel where the bones of World War II victims remain. Unbelievable what these people are capable of. Stamatovic, aren’t you ashamed?”Ivan Ilic, wrote on Twitter, later was republished in Informer. Illustration: BIRN
According to the Stanford report, one of the top three bot accounts taken down last month operated under the name ‘Mirjana Kujovic’ [@1kujovic].
The account’s tweets found their way into Serbian and Russian media more than once. Following Putin’s 2019 visit, the Russian website fontanka.ru cited a January 17, 2019 Kujovic tweet as evidence of the warm welcome Putin received.
Months earlier, in October 2018, a negative comment made by the Kujovic account under tweets by Serbian opposition politicians Bojan Pajtic and Vuk Jeremic was then embedded in a story by the tabloid Espreso.
The same month, another tabloid, Srbija Danas, published a Kujovic tweet criticising academic Dusan Teodorovic, a founder of the opposition Movement of Free Citizens, PSG.
Kurir also got involved, quoting another later-deleted bot popular with pro-government tabloids in Serbia – Ivan Ilic [@grofodValjeva].
The more than 8,500 accounts deleted by Twitter “worked steadily to legitimate Vucic’s policies and undercut public support for his opponents,” the Standard Internet Observatory wrote.
The accounts tweeted more than 43 million times – 85 per cent retweets.
While some were active in 2009, within months of the Progressive Party’s founding the year before, the network began ramping up its activities in mid-2018, the Stanford report said, right before the start of large, regular anti-government protests under the banner “1 of 5 million’.
The average number of followers attracted by the accounts was just 66, but combined they reached roughly 2.3 million Twitter users. @belilav11 and @1kujovic racked up 12,167 and 10,867 followers and more than 330,000 and 390,000 engagements respectively.
Engagement, however, was not the primary purpose, the report said.
“…they existed primarily to boost retweet and reply counts for other accounts,” it said. “This was consistent with the political aims of this network, which revolved around artificially boosting Vucic and his allies on Twitter.”
The network and its media allies, Milivojevic said, were working to manipulate the Serbian public.
“With 43 million messages [tweets] in which someone is praised or criticised, that manipulation also entails a decline in trust in the media by erasing the boundary between truth and lies,” Milivojevic told BIRN.
And the bots work in concert with genuine, popular Twitter users and pro-government tabloids and broadcasters, she said.
“What is published in tabloids is taken over by influential Twitter users… Then anonymous bots retweet and spread it, and from there on their tweets are going back to informative talk shows, where politicians or analysts bring them in [printed] and show them around,” Milivojevic said, referring to the Pink TV talk show Hit Tvit [Hit Tweet].
‘Like the plague’
Serbian progressive party (SNS) leader Aleksandar Vucic (front- C) addresses the media at a polling station in Belgrade, Serbia. Photo: EPA/ANDREJ CUKIC/ANDREJ CUKIC
Andrej Petrovski, head of tech at the SHARE Foundation, a Belgrade-based digital rights NGO, said Twitter’s deletion of so many accounts should serve as a warning to Serbia’s ruling party.
Creating and managing such a vast network takes a lot of time and people, he said, people he described as members of the SNS “party machinery” each running at least 10 Twitter accounts.
“Twitter made it clear with this move: if you do it all over again, we will do the same, and then you will think whether you want to invest that amount of time, effort and money again knowing it can all disappear overnight,” Petrovski told BIRN.
Some, however, say the bots are back already, promoting the party line amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They are like plague now,” said Jovana Gligorijevic, a journalist with the weekly political magazine Vreme and a frequent target of the SNS bots.
“They are all parts of the same machinery,” she told BIRN. “They create a fake vox populi [voice of the people].”
Gligorijevic said that whenever she uses the words ‘Aleksandar Vucic, ‘minister,’ ‘SNS’, ‘the president’ or ‘the prime minister’, she is bombarded by insults and negative comment, to the degree that she once deleted her account.
“The bots react on those key words,” Gligorijevic said. “This is one network for absolute media control.”
BIRN editor Slobodan Georgiev has also been ensnared.
“First they insult you on Twitter, then that is published in tabloids and then you end up in the ‘analysis’ on tabloid TV stations,” he said.
A bigger problem, however, “is that they make you an ‘enemy’, and that comes directly from the top of SNS, which leads these bot divisions,” he said. And that makes journalism difficult.
“Then you are labelled a danger to the state and people working in the system start avoiding you and stop responding.”
Civic society groups in Montenegro have criticized the arrest on Thursday of an opposition Democratic Front activist for posting fake news about the President’s health.
On Thursday, authorities put Radovan Rakocevic from the town of Bijelo Polje in custody for 72 hours for the offence of spreading panic. Rakocevic had shared an article on Facebook from a Belgrade tabloid, Alo, which claimed that Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic had been infected with the coronavirus.
“The prosecutor believes that Rakocevic would be able to repeat the criminal offence if he was released and would continue to publish statements that would cause panic among citizens. So he was ordered into detention,” the prosecutor’s decision said.
While the Democratic Front called on the authorities to release Rakocevic, the head of the Civic Alliance, Boris Raonic, warned that the government cannot fight fake news with arrests. He said the authorities should be more transparent and inform the public about everything related to COVID-19.
He said a guest on the national public broadcaster had also “presented a conspiracy theory that could cause panic, but there was no reaction either from the prosecution or the [broadcasting] management. That gives us a new element to this story – selective justice,” Raonic told the daily newspaper Vijesti.
He was referring to a guest speaker on the public service prime time show “Corona stay home” who presented a theory that COVID-19 was a biological weapon. Economic analyst Predrag Drecun, considered to be close to ruling DPS party, has claimed the coronavirus was produced in the US by the Defense Ministry.
Even before the COVID-19 outbreak became more severe in Montenegro, there had been arrests for spreading panic about it. On March 13, the Basic Court ordered 30 days in custody for Milivoje Brkovic for posting a message on Facebook that said state officials were hiding the real number of people suffering from the coronavirus in Montenegro. The country confirmed its first two cases on March 17.
On March 23, a Russian citizen was put in custody for posting on Instagram that more than a thousand people had caught COVID-19 in Montenegro. To date, Montenegro has confirmed 252 coronavirus infections, two of whom have died.
In the COVID-19 pandemic, people are being arrested in Serbia for posting or texting messages that contain information that can be linked with the ongoing health crisis – their actions being classified as acts of spreading panic and causing disorder by spreading fake news. They can face up to three years in prison, or a fine.
It comes as people, independent journalists especially, are subjected to severe limitations of freedom of speech under the excuse of the health crisis, which in some cases has also led to their incarceration.
Looking at all these cases as part of a contextualised story, they clearly expose the authoritarian tendency of the regime in Serbia to curb freedoms far more than is necessary during the state of emergency – no doubt knowing that it will leave behind a lot of fear and intimidation, which will last far longer than any pandemic.
Journalist Ana Lalic. Photo: Vesna Lalic /Nova.rs
Last Wednesday, for example, Ana Lalic, a journalist from the online portal Nova S, was arrested merely for reporting poor conditions in the Vojvodina Clinical Centre. She was released the next day thanks to huge pressure from the media and civil society organisations.
Another important decision followed on Thursday when, on the Serbian President’s request, the government withdrew its earlier decision, issued on March 31 , giving the central Crisis Staff led by Prime Minister Ana Brnabic the exclusive right to inform the public about anything linked with the COVID-19 crisis. This seriously endangered media freedoms.
Before this, the information flow had been put under the full control of the government of a country that has dropped 14 places recently in terms of media freedom to 90th position among 180 countries, according to the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
Rule of Law is suffering in COVID-19 outbreak
The rule of law in Serbia was nothing to be proud about already, and the scope of political influence on the judiciary remains a matter of concern. Now, many lawyers and legal experts have warned of the unconstitutionality of decisions issued during the state of emergency, and questioning the state of emergency itself.
The latest statement from the Bar Chamber of Serbia , addressing the constitutionality of the decision to declare a state of emergency, emphasised that the chamber will “always react when they evaluate that there has been a serious disruption of legal state order, which can be dangerous for the legal state functioning”.
But digital rights, and rights to privacy and freedom of expression on the internet all face serious limitations and breaches. In the illiberal democracies of the region, dominated by elements of authoritarian regimes, there is legitimate concern about disproportionate interference in citizens’ personal data and a justified belief that the newly imposed measures are not properly tailored to achieve their objective while minimally damaging guaranteed rights.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade, Serbia. Photo: EPA-EFE/KOCA SULEJMANOVIC
President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia, while introducing the latest measures there, has openly said that the authorities there “see everything”. Those who have entered the country since March 14 are now receiving SMS messages with new rules applying to their situation. We do not have the privilege of being assured that the ongoing tracking and monitoring of individuals and communities is being carried out strictly in line with human rights, however. There is also concern about the future use of the data being collected during this crisis.
Several arrests because of social media posts and account bans have occurred since March 30, while, on the other hand, a page called “COVID 19 Serbia” – which targets journalists and government opponents with sponsored posts during the crisis – functions normally. It is obvious some people are being permitted to use this global disease in the most disgraceful way to hurt others.
The case of the Nova S journalist happened in a certain context, and in an atmosphere where journalists’ right to put questions to the government has been limited, and shortly after the decision was made on controlling the flow of information.
Human rights organisations have issued a joint statement calling on governments to refrain from taking unbalanced measures that violate human rights. The European Union Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, has said: “Challenges that governments face during the COVID-19 pandemic are no excuse for clamping down on press freedom and restricting access to information”.
Unprecedented challenges in countering #COVID19 are no excuse to clamp down on press & restrict access to information. All @coe states shld preserve #PressFreedom & ensure that measures vs disinformation are necessary, proportionate & subject to oversight https://t.co/0P0ZRsaTU4pic.twitter.com/woMsKaZLS0
— Commissioner for Human Rights (@CommissionerHR) April 3, 2020
The announcement of the withdrawal of the decision on the information flow – only two days after it was declared – and the release of the journalist Lalic – have been presented as acts of mercy and kindness on the part of the President when more important tasks face the country at the moment.
While the decision was still in force, however, another arrest occurred, of a 34-year-old man, this time for posting a tweet. He was detained on suspicion of spreading panic and causing disorder by allegedly spreading fake news on Twitter saying that Serbia would impose a 24-hour curfew. The man was released the next day, after he told police he was not the author of the fake news and only got the information from his wife who works at the construction, transport and infrastructure ministry.
A day before his arrest, Serbia’s Interior Minister warned citizens that disinformation was circulating on social networks about the alleged new 24-hour curfew, while the tabloid Informer claimed that this fake news was being spread via SMS, and published a number from which the message supposedly arrived.
This text was removed on Wednesday, and replaced with the new one, after users of Telekom Serbia mobile provider received a message about the “Dramatic situation in Serbia” sent to them on the request of central Crisis Staff for COVID-19 suppression – from the same number that Informer had first claimed was used to send the message about “24-hour curfew”.
Real paradise for pro-government media
Before the health crisis finally erupted in Serbia, pro-government media were accusing the opposition and independent-minded people of spreading panic and frightening the public with the pandemic.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic started to really affect Serbia, they rapidly changed their tune – but kept the same authentic style.
Some of the headlines related to coronavirus published on the front page of Informer daily newspaper – “Corona in Serbia under complete control” (top left); “Sick plan of SZS (Alliance for Serbia), spreading lies about coronavirus and migrants in order to postpone the elections and take Vucic down” (top right); “Coronavirus escaped from the laboratory” (down left); “Dr Branimir Nestorovic explained: Coronavirus is ridiculous! No need to wear masks” (down right). Photo: BIRN/Novinarnica.net
At a press conference on Thursday, for example, when the pro-government media asked the President questions, they insulted the journalist Lalic and the portal she works for. Dragan Vucicevic, editor of Serbia’s most popular tabloid, even expressed concern that her release might officially legitimise the publication of fake news in Serbia – tough talk from a man whose media outlet has routinely used published unverified and fake information, and which has been proved to be a pro-government biased news factory!
President Vucic reminded all journalists that, besides the criminal code , Serbia has norms that regulate the responsibilities of journalists and the media (Section 5, Article 38-41) and other individuals for fake news distribution and spreading and causing panic among the public (Article 343).
But one might argue that certain rules seem applicable only to regular citizens – and to media that report on government wrongdoings.
Not limited to one country
As usual, bad trends in the Balkans never emerge only in one country. Arrests for posts on social media and articles, removal of content from websites, or even removal of whole websites, banning accounts, and limitations on journalistic work are all happening in other countries in the region as well.
Additionally, citizens’ personal data and lists of names of infected people are being shared on the internet – and no one is being prosecuted for such activities.
The latest example of this type of violation in Serbia comes from the northern municipality of Sid, which published the personal data of a citizen confirmed as infected with COVID-19. That person’s initials, age, address and workplace were all published on the municipal website.
False information about the virus is spread each day in the Balkans. In a region with poor media literacy, citizens are deceived in the most senseless way at a time when they are most vulnerable. Journalists and individuals who try to report on the under-reported cases are portrayed as enemies of the fight against the virus.
The health of each person is, and must be, our priority at this time – but that should not mean it has to be constantly confronted with the health of our freedoms.
For more information and the latest updates on arbitrary arrests, emergency legislation to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, surveillance, phone tapping, privacy breaches and other digital rights violations, visit the Digital Rights in the Time of COVID-19 page on BIRN’s Investigative Resource Desk.
The rights organisation Transparency International, TI, in Bosnia and Herzegovina has called on Zeljka Cvijanovic, President of the Serb-led entity, Republika Srpska, to withdraw a decree banning the spread of panic and disorder during a state of emergency, saying that the Bosnia’s constitution does not allow the entities to suspend the right to freedom of expression and opinion.
In Republika Srpska, a decree with the force of law prohibiting the spread of panic and disorder during a state of emergency came into force on Tuesday.
The decree, which follows the introduction of the state of emergency in the entity, stipulates fines of 500 to 4,500 euros for individuals and companies that spread panic and fake news through the media and social networks. Opposition parties in the RS describe the regulation as controversial.
The Board of Directors of the Association of Bosnian Journalists has meanwhile called on both Bosnian entities to ensure unhindered access to information and decisions regarding the COVID-19 epidemic in a safe and free manner, without imposing any restrictions, censorship or restrictions on journalists.
“Such an approach calls for the urgent withdrawal of decisions and regulations with legal force concerning the restriction of freedom of expression and opinion in the media and on social networks, as well as the abolition of the power of individuals, police and other security agencies to censor the media and citizens, with rapid investigations or the imposition of very high fines, as in Republika Srpska,” the Association said in a press release.
The current RS decree is almost identical to the earlier ruling banning panic and fake news that the RS government adopted on March 19.
One of the first individuals fined for violating the decree is a medical doctor, Maja Stojic Dragojevic, who is also a member of the Presidency of the largest opposition party in the RS, the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS. She was fined for writing on Facebook that there were not enough ventilators, beds, or intensive care services in the RS, and for claiming that the RS was unprepared for what is to come.
The Association of Bosnian Journalists has also warned that the government of Bosnia’s other entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, through its Ministry of the Interior and cyber-crime units, had begun monitoring information on social networks, and that five criminal proceedings had since been instituted for allegedly spreading false information and panic.
“Regardless of the emergency, it is against all democratic values to impose institutional censorship and restrictions on freedom of expression and information and to give broad authority to individuals engaged in crisis staffs or police and security agencies to interpret and ‘regulate’ journalistic rights and media freedoms according to their standards,” the association said.
The Journalists’ Association has said it will invite international organisations and European institutions for the protection of freedom of expression to respond to the censorship of information about COVID-19 in Bosnia.
The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, recently said measures to combat misinformation should not be abused to hinder media freedom. She warned that freedom of the media was being suppressed in several countries under the pretext of combating misinformation about the coronavirus.
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