Author: Ivana Jeremic

Albanian Tax Inspectors Fine Critical Media Outlets

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Albania’s General Tax Directorate has imposed several hefty fines on several TV stations, most of which are critical of the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama, the media companies said on Tuesday.

Ora News, a TV station based in Tirana, was fined around 50 million leks (437,000 euros) while Focus News, the company that owns the News 24 channel, was fined around 20 million leks (173,000 euros).

The government’s Media and Information Agency declined to respond to BIRN’s request for detailed comments about the reasons for the fines, but offered a general response.

“The government of Albania shows maximum respect for the media and the journalists and their duty,” the agency said.

“We emphasise that the government mission is to rigorously implement the law, which is equal for all and this is a universal principle,” it added.

It said BIRN’s specific questions were “of a too technical nature” and suggested contacting the Tax Directorate. The Tax Directorate didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment and its press office didn’t respond to phone calls.

Hysenbelliu Group, the group of companies that owns one of the television stations that were fined, told BIRN the fine was one of several targeting its companies, claiming that the intention was to silence its media outlets.

Last September, a hotel owned by the group was blown up by the government who claimed it was illegally constructed.

“This latest fine is part of a multipronged campaign against this group in which tax inspectors, the customs administration, the National Inspectorate for the Protection of the Territory and other government agencies have undertaken against the Hysenbelliu Group of companies, who also own the News 24 channel, Balkanweb [news website] and Panorama [newspaper],” the group’s press office told BIRN.

“For us there is no doubt that this campaign, which amounts to some 17 million euros in fines, is directed by the Prime Minister Edi Rama in revenge against the editorial line of this media group,” it said.

Ora News director Brahim Shima said the fine was yet another attempt to close the station, which has been under state administration since 2020, which includes the period during which tax inspectors believe that it under-reported its tax ownings.

“This fine is simply aiming to shut down the channel, thus closing the space for carry out journalistic duties in an independent way,” Shima said.

The report on the inspection of Focus News, seen by BIRN, said that the tax inspectors found unlawful salaries being paid “below the average market rate” for the specific profession and therefore recalculated the company’s tax dues assuming that the staff were employed with a salary equal to the average.

Based on this reasoning, the inspectors concluded that the company should have paid some 7.3 million leks (over 63,000 euros) more in social and health insurance contributions

The inspectors also calculated that the company underpaid personal income tax to the tune of around 3.5 million leks (some 30,000 euros).

Tax informality is perceived as being widespread in Albania with companies keeping separate books of accounts, one for tax purposes and the other for management purposes in order to under-report revenue, salaries and tax dues. In such cases, it is believed that companies pay salaries partly via bank transfers and partly in cash to evade detection.

In December 2021, a file containing wage data for some 630,00 Albanians, the entire workforce in the country, was leaked online – the first time in which such data was made available publicly and could be analysed independently.

It was observed that scores of companies reported unfeasibly low salaries for professional jobs, such as lawyers employed for a declared salary of some 30,000 leks (260 euros) a month, the country’s minimum wage.

The government announced it would start to tackle the issue, and based on this initiative, the Tax Directorate decided to send inspectors to media companies.

However, the report on Focus Media Group stated that it found no traces of the company employing unregistered employers and no traces of double bookkeeping. But it concluded that some of the employees had salaries “below the market average for the specific profession”.

Turkish Social Media Platform to Challenge Govt Blockage in Court

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Eksi Sozluk, one of Turkey’s most popular social media networks, on Thursday said it will challenge in court a government agency’s decision to block access to its website without giving any reason.

“No content was given as a basis for the decision taken by the Presidency’s Directorate for Security Affairs,” Eksi Sozluk said on Thursday and added: “We will apply all legal processes against the decision.”

Eksi Sozluk was blocked on Wednesday by decision of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority, BTK. Since then, the platform has been trying to get information about the reason.

Although no content was cited for the decision, Eksi Sozluk was told by officials at the Turkish Presidency that the decision was made because, “especially after the earthquake, false information was given about the military and state institutions, the state was shown as desperate and it was determined that posts were aiming to create an atmosphere of chaos among the society.”

Eksi Sozluk added that officials had accused the social media platform of not reacting to “wrong and slanderous content”.

The platform has been a target of pro-government media outlets due to its posts on the earthquakes that were critical about the slow and ineffective response of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s gpvernment.

The February 6 disaster has devastated Turkey’s south and southeastern provinces, killing more than 43,000 people and leaving millions without homes.

Critics say that President Erdogan’s government is using allegedly “slanderous” comments on the handling of the earthquake disaster to silence all criticism of its disaster management.

The government previously blocked most access to Twitter and TikTok and slowed down the internet, complaining about “misinformation”, as public anger mounted about the government’s response to the crisis.

Access to social media networks and the internet was fully restored a day later, following harsh criticism of the move. Critics accused the government of cutting off a key source of communication for relatives of victims, survivors and aid campaigners.

Eksi Sozluk is a collaborative hypertext dictionary working similarly to Reddit and it is one of the most popular Turkish social media platforms and most visited websites since 1999.

Turkey Arrests 24 for ‘Provocative’ Social Media Posts on Quakes

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Turkish police on Sunday said they have arrested 24 people for “provocative” social media posts following the February 6 earthquake disaster that has killed more than 41,000 people.

“Legal proceedings were initiated against 441 account managers, 129 people were detained in line with the instructions received from the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, and 24 of them were arrested,” the Cyber Crimes department of the Police Directorate said in a written statement on Sunday.

The 24 had posted “provocative posts on social media platforms regarding earthquakes in order to create fear and panic among citizens”, police said.

Devastating twin earthquakes struck southern and south-eastern Turkey on February 6, registering 7.9 and 7.7 on the Richter scale.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, AFAD, says it now believes more than 41,000 people lost their lives and more than 108,000 others were injured in addition to millions who lost their homes. At least 2 million people have since left the quake region for safer locations.

Since the first days of the disaster, police have targeted social media users, journalists and experts who commented critically about the government’s slow and ineffective response.

Journalists’ unions and watchdog organisations have reported several incidents when police prevented journalists from reporting in the quake zones.

“We are following and recording the increasing threats, violence and censorship targeting journalists covering the earthquakes and their aftermath,” the Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA, a leading NGO that monitors media freedom violations, said.

According to the government, search and rescue missions are about to wind up operations in 11 provinces hit by the quakes. Experts and officials fear the death toll will increase as the wreckage removal process comtinues.

The real death toll “is at least three to four, maybe five times worse than the announced figures. We will [have to]… and build provinces again,” Osman Bilgin, the provincial governor of Sirnak managing the earthquake response in the Nurdagi district in Gaziantep, said on Sunday.

The government previously blocked most access to Twitter, Tiktok and slowed down the internet in the country as public anger mounted about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government’s response to the crisis.

Access to social media networks and the internet were fully restored a day later, however, following harsh critisism of the move. Critics accused the government of cutting off a key source of communication for relatives of victims, survivors and aid campaigners.

Cyber-Attack Hits Greece’s ‘Documento’ After Report on Fraudster’s Wife

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Greek media group Documento’s two websites, Documentonews.gr and Koutipandoras.gr, were subjected to distributed denial-of-service DDoS cyber-attacks on Monday as a result of which the servers went down, and users experienced connectivity problems. 

The hackers buffeted the websites one day after the publication of a new report on Yasam Ayavefe’s wife and her connections to the Greek underworld. 

Earlier, Balkan Insight and Greek media outlets Solomon and Inside Story reported on how Ayavefe was awarded honorary Greek citizenship in 2022 despite the fact that in 2017 he was convicted of defrauding online gamblers in his home country, and in 2019 was arrested in Greece while trying to cross the border into Bulgaria on a false Greek passport. 

Last Sunday, journalist Marios Aravantinos revealed that a Greek criminal organization issued Ayavefe’s wife a fake ID. 

The organisation made fake identity cards and passports, mainly for citizens from Albania or from countries of the former Soviet Union who were involved in some illegal activity. The case was reported to the authorities in December 2021 but Ayavefe was still granted honorary citizenship.

“Documento is the fourth media outlet to come under attack after publishing news about this Turkish man. There is a pattern; whether the perpetrator is the same person remains to be proven. We express our concern,” Aravantinos told BIRN. 

BIRN’s Greek partner media outlet Solomon’s and Inside Story’s websites came under a DDoS attack from hackers last September. “The attack started on Saturday at 7.30 am. That’s when the alarms went off, and around eight, we had already started to react. It was a fierce battle; I never experienced a fight like that,” an IT security expert said about the BIRN attack.  “At one point on Saturday, we had 35 million different IP connections from all over the world. The site was brought down by the number of connections,” he said.

Turkish NGO Sues GSM Operators, Authorities, Over Social Media Ban

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Veysel Ok, a lawyer and co-director of Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA, filed a criminal complaint on Friday against mobile network operators and the executives of Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority, BTK, following the ban imposed on Twitter and TikTok during the quake disaster.

Ok’s criminal complaint against them includes “misuse of public duty”, “prevention of communication”, “reckless killing” and “reckless injury”.

“At a time when people were literally holding onto life via social media, this kind of recklessness and irresponsibility are unacceptable,” Ok told BIRN, underlying that the application of bandwidth throttling is “a direct harm inflicted onto people”.

Monday’s massive earthquakes in Turkey registering 7.9 and 7.7 on the Richter scale have devastated the country’s south and south-eastern regions. Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency, AFAD, said it believed at least 18,991 people lost their lives and more than 75,500 were injured.

“Turkey is experiencing one of the worst disasters in its history. The authorities, who are responsible for protecting the lives of citizens, but cannot prevent this, actively seek to undermine citizens’ communication, journalists’ work and, unfortunately, search and rescue efforts,” Ok said.

The government’s response to the earthquake has been criticized by numerous survivors, experts and journalists, who say it has failed to deliver assistance to several devastated areas and not used the armed forces effectively, despite having 120,000 personnel in the region.

The government has meanwhile also banned, detained and investigated journalists and experts reporting on the disaster.

On Wednesday, it also blocked access to Twitter and TikTok – main sources of communication for relatives of victims, survivors and aid campaigners. Many people were rescued after they shared their situation and location via Twitter.

Internet connection was also reportedly slowed down by the authorities in what it calls a fight against misinformation.

“The responsibility of GSM operators and BTK officials should not be forgotten in the dust cloud of this disaster,” Ok said, adding that it is the duty of the state to effectively investigate related deaths and bring those responsible before the courts.

“We expect our criminal complaint to be processed promptly and investigated effectively,” Ok concluded.

Twitter was restored in Turkey on Friday following a meeting between government officials and Twitter on Thursday. According to Turkish officials, Twitter pledged to cooperate and to support “Turkey’s efforts to combat disinformation”.

Turkey Blocks Twitter After Public Criticism of Quake Response

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Turkish government has blocked most access to Twitter following growing public anger towards President Recep Tayyip Erdogan government’s response to Monday’s deadly earthquakes.

“Twitter has been restricted in #Turkey; the filtering is applied on major internet providers and comes as the public come to rely on the service in the aftermath of a series of deadly earthquakes,” NetBlocks, an internet observatory that follows global net freedoms, announced.

People now cannot access Twitter at all via two of the three main internet providers. TurkTelekom and Turkcell have completely blocked access. Vodafone still allows slower access to Twitter.

Days after the most devastating earthquake disaster in modern-day Turkey, the government has so far failed to deliver assistance to several areas devastated by two major quakes registering 7.9 and 7.7 on the Richter scale, leaving thousands dead.

The government has not announced or commented on the Twitter ban. The government previously restricted social media access following disasters, terror attacks and protests.

Experts, politicians and people criticised the ban, saying that Twitter was the main source of communications for many people searching for survivors and victims as well as for local and nationwide aid campaigns.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP said they will continue to use Twitter with VPN. “I told my friends in the field to use VPN for cooperation coordination. This insane … the government cut off social media communication,” Kilicdaroglu said.

His anger is shared by many people. “By restricting Twitter at this time, you are preventing or delaying help from reaching people who can reach it. You are killing people on purpose,” Ali Gul, a lawyer and activist, wrote on Twitter.

According to official figures, at least 8,574 people lost their lives, more than 49,000 people were injured and thousands of buildings were destroyed in the quakes.

President Erdogan visited quake-hit cities on Wednesday and asked for patience from people due to the government’s slow response.

Ukraine War Increases Media Freedom Violations in Europe: Report

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

There was an increase in media freedom violations last year including ten deaths of journalists – nine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine and one in Turkey, said the 2022 Monitoring Report published on Tuesday by Media Freedom Rapid Response, a project that monitors such violations in EU states and candidate countries.

“What we have observed in the past year was definitely a dark shadow cast over media freedom through the fog of war in Ukraine, resulting from full-scale Russian invasion, that also led to a steep increase in the number of violations reported on our Mapping Media Freedom database, including the unfortunate loss of nine lives in the country,” Gurkan Ozturan, Media Freedom Rapid Response coordinator at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, told BIRN.

Ozturan said that across Europe there were widespread online attacks as well as legal harassment of journalists, while reporters also faced problems when covering environmental issues.

The report said that Media Freedom Rapid Response registered 813 ‘alerts’ last years – incidents that affects at least 1,339 journalists, media workers or outlets.

“Almost half of these alerts originating in the [EU] candidate countries which shows that there is room for improvement in this field. It is crucial to underline the fact that an independent, pluralistic media atmosphere is the basis of our rights,” Ozturan said.

Turkey was the worst EU candidate country for media rights violations, according to the report.

“2022 was another devastating year for press freedom in Turkey, as systemic repression of independent media continued. Mapping Media Freedom, MapMF recorded a total of 167 press freedom violations in Turkey, involving 362 persons or media entities,” the report said.

“Turkey continues to be one of the biggest jailers of journalists in the world. At the time of publishing, 41 journalists were imprisoned,” it added.

In Serbia, “the toxic environment” in which journalists have to work remains a concern, according to the report.

“Constantly fuelled by politicians and other media outlets, the labelling of journalists as ‘traitors’ or ‘enemies of the state’ encourages and legitimises additional intimidation from the public,” the report said.

Media Freedom Rapid Response recorded 41 alerts for Serbia involving 60 journalists or media outlets.

In Albania, “physical violence and verbal attacks on journalists were the gravest threats to press freedom in Albania in 2022”, the report said adding that 17 alerts involving 30 victims were recorded.

“Especially worrying was the number of incidents of police violence towards journalists, which was linked to seven out of the 17 violations (41 per cent) recorded on MapMF,” the report said.

It also highlighted what is said was Prime Minister Edi Rama’s worrying rhetoric about journalists.

Concerns were expressed about the situation in some EU countries in central and south-east Europe.

The report said that in Hungary, the ruling Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has overseen a systematic erosion of media pluralism over the past decade and used pandemic restrictions to hinder independent journalism.

“Media freedom and pluralism in Hungary remained highly challenging in 2022. While MapMF recorded a total of 11 press freedom violations involving 13 targets, these alone do not capture the wider and systemic challenges facing independent media. Over half (54.5 per cent) of the documented cases were legal incidents (six alerts),” the report said.

It recorded 21 alerts involving 28 victims in Poland.

“Legal threats to journalists remained a grave concern in Poland in 2022, accounting for nearly half (42.9 per cent) of the press freedom violations on MapMF registered in the country. Journalists were threatened with defamation lawsuits, and in three cases the lawsuits led to convictions,” the report said.

The report described the media environment in Greece in 2022 as worrying too.

“Press freedom in Greece continued its marked deterioration in 2022 amid a sprawling spyware scandal as well as several serious criminal charges and violent attacks on journalists. MapMF recorded a total of 42 violations involving 63 persons or entities related to media. The safety of journalists remained a serious concern after multiple physical attacks,” it said.

Croatian Journalists Demand Investigation Into Colleague’s Death

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Six months after the death of investigative journalist Vladimir Matijanic, a protest rally held under the slogan “I am sorry to bother you, I can’t breathe”, on Sunday in Zagreb, demanded an investigation into his death.

Matijanic died from COVID on August 5 2022. The 50-year-old, who lived in Split and worked for the Index.hr news website, caught COVID and he and his partner repeatedly phoned his local hospital in Split – but his case was deemed not serious enough to be hospitalized and he died at home due to respiratory problems. He had not been vaccinated owing to underlying health conditions. His partner has insisted his life chances would have been improved if he had been admitted to hospital.

The Croatian Journalists’ Association, HND, is advocating for an independent investigation into the circumstances of Matijanic’s death and the resignation of Health Minister Vili Beros.

HND Chairman Hrvoje Zovko and Andrea Topic, Matijanic’s partner, presented the government with a petition signed by nearly 5,000 people demanding the independent investigation.

The protest began with a recording of Matijanic’s call to the Split emergency room, in which he asked for help and said: “I am sorry to bother you, I can’t breathe.”

“We will never give up on this issue. It is this arrogant system …. The minister can say that what we are saying is malicious, but as long as he lives, he will not escape responsibility,” Zovko said.

He added that the protest was not against health workers but against the system.

Many people came to the demonstration on buses from Split, Šibenik, Vinkovci, Vukovar, Daruvar, Virovitica, Osijek, Slavonski Brod, Pula, Rijeka and among those gathered were many journalists, politicians, writers and actors.

Support was also provided by partner organizations, the Independent Union of Journalists of Serbia, NUNS, and the New Optimism organization from Belgrade.

Andrea Topic reiterated that this was a protest for better health care. She read several Facebook messages from Matijanic about Croatia’s struggling health care system, including a message from him dated 4. February 2014, in which he wrote: “I am lying in a hospital that was built many years ago, in a bed that is long past its prime, with bedding that no one has at home anymore, and I am listening to news about the need to reduce skyrocketing health care costs.”

Health Minister Beros accused the protesters of politicising a personal tragedy. “Although the expert opinions on the death of journalist Vladimir Matijanić in Split last August were transparently presented and publicly announced by all relevant professional and state bodies, the Croatian Journalists’ Association and others are once again using the death of their colleague for political goals,” he said.

MEPS Quiz Commission on BIRN-Solomon Report on Greek Surveillance Systems

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Members of the European Parliament sent written questions to the European Commission on September 16 about the EU-funded “Centaur” and “Hyperion” surveillance systems deployed in reception areas in Greece. Their questions came after BIRN and Greek investigative outlet Solomon published a joint investigation on this on September 9.

BIRN and Solomon revealed in “Asylum Surveillance Systems Launched in Greece without Data Safeguards” that the “Centaur” and “Hyperion” systems were crafted and initially implemented with funds from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility – without prior recruitment of a Data Protection Officer at the Ministry of Migration and Asylum, a requirement under the GDPR, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, to ensure adequate oversight. 

Nor were mandatory Data Protection Impact Assessments, DPIA, conducted in the design phase.

Tineke Strik, a member of the Group of the Greens, one of the eight MEPs who signed the questions to the Commission, published it yesterday on her Twitter account. 

“EU funding of surveillance technology used on migrants in violation of fundamental rights must stop,” Strik said. 

The MEPs asked the Commission how much money the EU spent on the two surveillance systems, from which funds this came, and how much funding has been or will be provided for similar systems. 

BIRN and Solomon established that the planning of Hyperion and Centaur began in 2020. The Hyperion system monitors movement in and out of state-run asylum camps. Centaur deploys behavioral analysis algorithms and transmits CCTV and drone footage to a control room inside the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum. 

Humanitarian organisations say the two surveillance systems violate asylum seekers’ fundamental rights and freedoms. 

The MEPs said the Greek government was clearly unwilling or unable to conduct an “independent investigation” following allegations of non-compliant expenditure of EU funds in violation of fundamental rights. 

“What is the Commission’s assessment of compliance with fundamental rights, and how is the Commission investigating this?” they asked.

“Is the Commission taking action to reject cost reimbursement or retract funding for the Centaur and Hyperion projects? What measures are being taken to prevent future EU-funding of projects in violation of fundamental rights?” they added. 

Albania Prosecutors Seek to Grill Five Officials Over Cyber-attacks

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Tirana Court has received a prosecution request to arrest and investigate five civil servants over the recent cyber attacks that disabled various state institutions.

Its response was an “investigative secret”, a press statement said on Wednesday.

The prosecution request, which reached the court earlier Wednesday, is related to the crime of “abuse of duty” and accuses the five employees of not implementing safety regulations.

“The IT staff at DAP (public administration) could and should have requested a report from the economic operator contracted by DAP for the implementation and maintenance of the system in time, regarding the state in which this system was located, despite the lack of knowledge about how to implement the contract for the implementation of the administrata.al system,” the prosecution office said.

Albania has been hit by cyber-attacks since July 15, when the governmental portal e-albania was attacked. Since then, the hackers, through their website and Telegram group, both called “Homeland Justice”, have been releasing information, mostly from the police and State Information Service.

The Tirana Prosecution banned domestic media from reporting the content of the leaks in September, a move that was widely condemned by journalists and media watchdogs in Albania as censorship.

The hackers are believed to be Iranian; Tirana hosts a group of exiled Iranian dissidents called the MEK – People’s Mujahedin of Iran. The staff of the Iranian embassy in Tirana were expelled on September 7 over the attacks.

Since then, the hackers have conducted other operations, targeting the Traveler Information Management System, TIMS, on September 19, which caused chaos on the borders.

They also released the emails of Gledis Nano, the former chief of police, on September 19. Data from various databases was released after that, including the personal data of Prime Minister Edi Rama and Helidon Bendo, director of the State Information Service, and his wife.

According to an FBI report, Iranian hackers first accessed Albanian systems 14 months before the first cyberattack was reported on July 15, when government services became unavailable for some days.

“An FBI investigation indicates Iranian state cyber actors acquired initial access to the victim’s network approximately 14 months before launching the destructive cyber attack [in July], which included a ransomware-style file encryptor and disk wiping malware,” the report said.

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