Author: Ivana Jeremic

Greek Arrest Warrant Against Journalist Whistleblower Condemned

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The International Press Institute IPI, the Journalists’ Union of Athens Daily Newspapers, ESIEA, and the journalist himself have condemned the Greek Supreme Court’s arrest warrant against the TV journalist and publisher Petros Kousoulos.

The Supreme Court’s Prosecutor issued an arrest warrant against Kousoulos for publishing confidential documents on the National Intelligence Service NIS’s surveillance of his newspaper MPAM.

MPAM reported that the NIS wiretapped the telephone conversations of two former officials during the first half of the left-wing SYRIZA-ANEL’s government in 2016.

The wiretapping was about the transfer to a company of Qatari interests of an entire area in the mountains of Zakynthos; a scandal that was widely known at the time, but which Greek media did not cover.

Kousoulos himzelf said it was “unthinkable that in 2022, in a well-organized country like Greece, a journalist would be prosecuted for simply doing his job. I was surprised at the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office, which instead of shedding light on the case and finding the real culprits, issued a warrant for my arrest. All this is a violation of the freedom of the press.”

“We condemn the order of the arrest of Petros Kousoulos,” said a press release by ESIEA, announcing that it will seek a meeting with the Prosecutor to discuss all matters concerning journalists.

Greece is embroiled in a wiretapping scandal, nicknamed “predator gate”. The Supreme Court has not investigated who used and sold the illegal spyware “predator”. Instead, it issued a warrant against a journalist who revealed the state surveillance, which worries Greek journalists.

“I find it unthinkable that in 2022, in a well-organized country like Greece, a journalist would be prosecuted for simply doing his job. I was surprised at the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office, which instead of shedding light on the case and finding the real culprits, issued a warrant for my arrest. All this is a violation of the freedom of the press,” Kousoulos told BIRN on Friday.

“At a time when the political and social life of the country is shaken by the revelations about the scandal of government surveillance, the Prosecutor’s Office spends its time hunting journalists, instead of standing firm in its institutional role and investigating who orchestrated the wiretapping scandal,” Vangelis Triantis, a legal editor at the Greek media outlet Documento, told BIRN.

“The attempted criminalization of journalism aims at intimidating those journalists who in future make similar revelations about the wiretapping scandal. The journalist’s job is to publicize and inform public opinion,” added Triantis.

IPI Europe Advocacy Officer Jamie Wiseman told BIRN: “The initiation of an arrest warrant for a newspaper publisher over a journalistic report in an EU member state is an extremely serious issue, one which deserves scrutiny and raises immediate concerns for press freedom, especially at a time when Greece is already in the spotlight internationally.”

“While the publication of information from confidential documents about state surveillance is clearly a sensitive matter, IPI urges judicial authorities in Greece to proceed with utmost caution and with full respect for the values of public interest journalism and the freedom of the press,” he added.

Turkey’s Communications Chief Accuses Reuters of ‘Manipulation’

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Fahrettin Altun, head of the Communications Directorate under the Turkish Presidency, has accused Reuters news agency of “systemic manipulation” and “fake news” after it published a special report on how he and his staff control the newsrooms of Turkish media.

“This is not the first time that Reuters, an apparatus of perception operations and systematic manipulation targeting Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkey, publishes misleading and fake news,” Altun wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

A Reuters special report prepared by Jonathan Spicer wrote on Wednesday that from an office tower in Ankara, officials shape the nation’s news – and always to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s advantage.

The report added that the Communication Directorate often calls journalists and editors by phone and sends WhatsApp massages to instruct the media about their coverage.

Altun dismissed the claims and insisted on their good work. “Being targeted by the UK-based news agency Reuters is a sign that we are on the right track and a badge of honour,” Altun said.

Altun also accused Reuters of manipulation and fake news on certain topics, such as distorting Erdogan’s statements, Turkey’s military operations in Syria, the country’s economic crisis and the failed coup attempt in 2016.

“This is the sort of news agency that attempts to target the Turkey Communications Model and the Directorate today. We know perfectly well Reuters’ intentions, the purpose it serves and what it is doing for that purpose,” Altun said.

Altun, who has no previous media experience, was appointed to head the Directorate of Communications in 2018 under the new presidential system, in which there are almost no checks and balances.

“The Directorate, with an annual budget of around 680 million lira ($38 million), was tasked with coordinating government communication. It grew out of the old Directorate of Media, Press and Information, whose main role was issuing press cards to journalists. But its responsibilities reach much wider, including countering ‘systemic disinformation campaigns’ against Turkey through a unit the Directorate established this year,” Reuters wrote in its special report.

The directorate employs media monitors, translators, legal and public relations staff in Turkey and abroad.

“It has 48 foreign offices in 43 countries worldwide. These outposts deliver to headquarters weekly reports on how Turkey is portrayed in foreign media,” Reuters wrote, quoting an insider.

Altun and his Directorate are often accused of intervening heavy-handedly in the media.

“The government strategy is to make everyone see, hear and read only the government line,” Osman Vedud Esidir, a journalism professor, told Reuters.

Since the 2016 failed coup attempt resulted in a major crackdown on dissenting voices, the Turkish media and press have come under increasing government control.

Turkey ranked in 149th place out of 180 countries in 2022 in the latest press freedom index of the watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders, RSF It classifies the Turkish government’s control over media outlets as high.

Turkey Condemned for Expelling Greek Journalist

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Turkey has come under criticism after deporting Evangelos Areteos, a journalist working for Greek news outlet Real, on August 25 and forbidding him from returning, citing “public order” concerns.

Gurkan Ozturan, coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, said that the decision should be reversed.

“Setting up barriers against media freedom is unacceptable. We call upon Turkish authorities to lift this restriction and allow journalists and media organisations to operate freely and to allow the people in Turkey and Europe to enjoy their right to access information and news,” Ozturan told BIRN.

Areteos wrote on Monday on Twitter that he believes he was deported because of a reporting trip he made to northern Syria in 2015 and his travels and connections throughout Turkey.

He described the Turkish decision to deport him as “a deeply saddening development that leaves me with grief”.

“After 23 years, during which I lived for eight years and then travelled and worked in Turkey, the Turkish authorities decided to deport me and forbade me to return for reasons of ‘public order’,” he said.

The decision has also been condemned by other media freedom organisations.

“Greek journalist Evangelos Areteos’ long history working in Turkey should not come to an unceremonious end due to authorities’ disapproval of his work,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, programme director at the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York.

“Authorities must allow Areteos to return to Turkey, where he should be able to report freely and without fear of retaliation,” de la Serna added.

“The expulsion of Areteos, the writer of the Greek-based daily Real, from Turkey, where he has lived for many years, sadly points to the threshold of the [Turkish] authorities’ intolerance for criticism,” Erol Onderoglu, Turkey representative for Reporters Without Borders, wrote on Twitter.

Areteos is well known on both sides of the Aegean Sea. As well as working for Real, he is a non-resident research fellow at the Diplomatic Academy of the University of Nicosia, Cyprus and a research associate with Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy’s Turkey programme, a think-tank based in Athens.

Alexandra Voudouri, a Greek journalist and analyst with Macropolis.gr and Athina 9,84FM told BIRN that Areteos’ work has been invaluable for “bridging” Greek and Turkish societies, “something that is missing nowadays”.

“And what is really sad is that Turkey is essentially ‘burning’ this bridge as well,” Voudouri said.

Turkish political scientist Seren Selvin Korkmaz expressed a similar opinion.

“While the government builds a wall around itself, it also closes Turkey to the world,” Korkmaz wrote on Twitter.

“Journalist Areteos has been travelling to Turkey for 23 years and reporting meticulously, he was also trying to break the prejudices about Turkish society. The government has proven itself by expelling him,” she said.

Montenegro Still Assessing Damage From Mystery Cyber Attacks

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Montenegrin Minister of Public Administration Marash Dukaj said on Monday that organized cyber attacks on government servers have continued, adding that the damage to public data still has to be assessed.

Since August 22, the government has reported two series of cyber-attacks on government servers, claiming they managed to prevent any damage.

“The damage is being repaired and we are assessing its extent. The system will suffer no lasting effects. A huge amount of money was invested in this attack on our system,” Dukaj told a press conference.

Head of State Cyber Security Service Dusan Polovic said the authorities are not able to activate some services online, and a certain number of workstations are compromised.

“The cost of the virus used for the first attacks on the dark web is from 100 thousand to 2.5 million dollars,” said Polovic.

On August 26, the Ministry of Public Administration said some government servers were temporarily taken offline, while the Agency for National Security, ANB, accused Russian services of organizing coordinated cyber-attacks on government servers. The ANB said Montenegro was caught up in a “hybrid war”, claiming that an attack had been prepared for a long time.

The ANB did not respond to BIRN requests about the cyber-attacks’ investigation’s results. The head of the Electric Company, Milutin Djukanovic, on Monday meanwhile said ANB chief Savo Kentera had warned him about potential cyber-attacks on the electricity system, so they switched to a manual operating system.

On August 26, the US embassy in Montenegro warned its citizens that cyber-attacks may include disruptions to public utility, transportation and telecommunication sectors.

After a National Security session on August 26, outgoing Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic described the cyber-attacks as dangerous, but added that citizens’ personal data were safe. He said the authorities don’t have firm evidence yet about the organizers of the attack.

“We do not have clear information about the organizers. Security sector authorities couldn’t confirm that there is an individual, a group, a state behind this, nor could we deny it,” Abazovic said.

The government published a safe protocol for safety in cyberspace, calling on citizens to use licensed operative systems and create backup copies of all important data. The government noted that NATO members have helped Montenegrin authorities to prevent cyber-attack damage.

Reportedly, government servers were hit by ransomware, a type of malware attack in which the attacker locks and encrypts the victim’s data and important files, and then demands a payment to unlock and decrypt the data.

On Monday, Veselin Konatar, a professor from the University of Podgorica, said the government had not provided firm evidence about the cyber-attacks’ organizers.

“There is a real possibility that a cyber-attack on the government’s IT infrastructure could have been organized by both individuals and organized criminal groups… Also, the government surprisingly quickly assessed that there was no permanent damage to the IT infrastructure, nor any compromise of citizens’ data, which requires much more time to confirm,” Konatar told the daily Dan.

On Monday, IT specialist Branko Popovic urged authorities to present the results of the cyber-attacks investigation, warning also that the government doesn’t have the administrative capacities to deal with such attacks. “It’s possible that someone deliberately released a virus into the government servers in order to steal confidential information, correspondence or reports,” he posted on Facebook.

The government has not adopted a new Cyber Security Strategy after the last one became outdated in 2021. In July 2021, the then Minister of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media, Tamara Srzentic, said that the government would improve its administrative capacities in the cyber security sector, and push for international cooperation and staff education.

Twitter Suspends Accounts of Serbian Ruling Party MPs, Officials

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Twitter is reported to have suspended the accounts of at least 16 political figures in Serbia, all of them either members of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party or holders of senior state posts.

Political rights NGO CRTA on Friday named 13 ruling party MPs whose accounts have been suspended – Nevena Djuric, Sandra Bozic, Milica Nikolic, Jelena Obradovic, Aleksandar Markovic, Krsto Janjusevic, Dusan Radojevic, Jelena Zaric Kovacevic, Aleksandra Tomic, Stasa Stojanovic, Zoran Tomic, Andrijana Vasic and Olja Petrovic.

Twitter also suspended the accounts of Miroslav Cuckovic, the newly appointed Belgrade City Manager, and Slavisa Micanovic, a member of the Serbian Progressive Party’s main and executive boards.

The account of Arnaud Gouillon, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Office for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region, has been suspended too. Gouillon is a French national, founder of the organisation Solidarité Kosovo.

According to screen shots that Gouillon and MP Stasa Stojanovic posted online, they were suspended for breaking Twitter’s rules and were not be able to post new content or to ‘like’ anything.

Stojanovic said on Instagram that she does not know why her Twitter account was suspended.

“I didn’t enter into any discussions, nor did I insult anyone, nor did I do anything bad, especially not there [on Twitter], there I mostly retweet, share and like [Serbian Progressive] party things, things that happen in our country, and above all beautiful things, about art, about culture,” Stojanovic said.

Gouillon implied in a message posted on Facebook that he was suspended over his comment about an opinion survey about whether people in Serbia think the country’s former province of Kosovo “is lost”.

“Twitter just suspended my account where I had 34,000 followers, without explanation! It’s scandalous! Look at my last tweet and decide for yourself if I wrote something wrong,” Gouillon wrote.

This is the third year in a row that Twitter has either down or added warning messages to accounts in Serbia.

In August 2021, Twitter labelled a number of well-known newspapers and TV stations in Serbia as media over whose editorial content the state exercises control “through financial resources and direct or indirect political pressures”.

In April 2020, Twitter removed almost 8,558 accounts that it said were “working to promote Serbia’s ruling party”, the Serbian Progressive Party.

Turkish Journalists Demand New State Advertising Law After Court Ruling

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Turkish journalists have urged parliament to immediately prepare a new law after the Constitutional Court annulled the current law on the distribution of public advertising revenues and ruled that the state agency violated the freedom of the press.

“The Constitutional Court ruled that the sentences given by the Press Advertising Agency to newspapers violated the freedom of the press. We call on the Advertising Agency to act on this ruling and for parliament to change the law that leads to arbitrariness,” the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, TGS, said on Friday.

Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that the fines imposed on the press by the Press Advertising Agency, BIK, violated press freedom. “The BIK has turned into penalizing tool that can have a deterrent effect on some members of the press,” the court said.

According to the court, the BIK cut the media’s public ad revenues for 39 days in 2018, for 143 days in 2019 and 572 days in 2020, calling it “a systematic problem”.

The Constitutional Court also cancelled the related law on the BIK, saying: “The limits of the authority of the BIK were widened in an unpredictable way”.

Following the ruling, parliament must create a new law. Meanwhile, the BIK announced that it will not impose any new fines until the new law is adopted by parliament.

International media watchdogs and critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian rule say that the indefinite bans and fines imposed by the BIK represent another tool to suppress dissent.

State ad revenues are vital for the survival of many small and independent media in Turkey and the BIK is entitled to distribute these revenues and to cut public advertising for any outlet that violates press ethics.

Turkey ranked in 149th place out of 180 countries in 2022 in the latest press freedom index of watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders, RSF, which classifies the Turkish government’s control over media outlets as high.

BIRN Journalists Threatened by Turkish Far-Right ‘Wolves’

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Nermina Kuloglija and Hamdi Fırat Buyuk have received threats via phone calls, text messages and on social media from the Turkish far-right Grey Wolves organization’s Bosnian branch.

The threats were sent from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and from Turkey, on June 28, and since then, after BIRN published an investigation into the Grey Wolves organisation’s branch and its activities in Bosnia.

Kuloglija and Buyuk continued to receive messages on their phones with intimidating content after the publication of the article.

The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom on its Mapping Media Platform reported on the incidents of harassment, psychological abuse, intimidation and threats against the two BIRN journalists.

“Threats against journalists are unacceptable. In this case it has an international element to it which must be handled not only in the country where the journalists are based,” said Gürkan Özturan, Coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, a nonprofit that promotes and defends media freedom.

The Grey Wolves is an international Turkish ultra-nationalist and pan-Turkic organization that rose to prominence in the late-1970s. In 2021, the European Parliament called on the EU to add the Grey Wolves to its list of terrorist organisations. The Grey Wolves in Turkey have been involved in multiple acts of harassment for decades, Özturan told BIRN.

“These threats [ against BIRN journalists] cannot be overlooked and authorities in both Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as other regional and international organizations must be involved in investigations,” he concluded.

Threats to journalists are growing, the UN rights chief, Michelle Bachele, warned in an event marking World Press Freedom Day 2022. Journalism remains a dangerous and even deadly profession.

Worldwide, threats against journalists, online and off-line, imprisonments continue are rising, while online violence and harassment spur self-censorship and, in some cases, physical attacks, said UNESCO’s 2021/2022 online report, “World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development”.

Rise in TikTok Ads Among Albanians Selling Smuggling Operations to UK

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Anonymous accounts advertising transfers of people from Albania to the United Kingdom have spiked on TikTok using the route called English Channel, which smugglers are believed to use, according to media reports.

After reviewing dozens of accounts on TikTok, BIRN saw two kind of adverts: one for people who want to go to the UK from France on boats and the other for people crossing to the UK from Belgium in trucks. Prices published on the site range from 2,000 to 5,000 pounds sterling.

The advertisements comes from different TikTok accounts and offer different levels of engagement. Some publish the prices while others invite the public to contact them privately.

“…to England. 4,000 pounds. With boats. Every day”, reads one of the posts.

“…to London. (It`s) 100% sure, no chances of failures. These are the best prices in the market”, says another.

Another post advertising crossings to the UK in trucks says: “Departure for England in every two days. The best prices”.

Some of the posts have more than 200 likes. Most of the accounts reviewed were created this year, some of them in July, while others were created in the beginning of the year. There are also accounts opened only a few hours ago. Most of the posts publish also dates of departures.

One of them reads: “Departures everyday, the next departure is tomorrow on 22 July. We can take families also. You come today and leave tomorrow. We are the first and the best (for boats)” adding that they give 100% guarantees for the crossing. The post has 2,706 likes and 52 comments.

A report by the British tabloid Daily Mail quoting UK military intelligence documents claims that four in 10 recent illegal migrants to Britain are from Albania.

“The explosive document – marked ‘Official Sensitive’ – shows that almost three times as many migrants arriving on the UK’s shores from France come from the Balkan country compared with anywhere else. It is the first time that an official report has exposed how the largest proportion of those making illegal crossings appear to be economic migrants abusing Britain’s generous asylum system,” the Mail said, adding that nine criminal gangs handle the crossings from France to UK. The quoted report is not published.

The report reveals that of the 2,863 migrants transported by nine separate people-smuggling gangs between June 1 and July 12, 1,075 – or 37.5 per cent – were Albanian.

Other media, such as Britain`s News Channel have reported that the smuggling gangs use social networks such as TikTok to advertise the crossings and invite people to go to the UK.

Last year, Albania’s Ministry of Justice and UK Justice Minister Chris Philip signed a Prisoner Transfer Agreement in London in late July under which Albanian prisoners in the UK can be returned to Albania and banned from entering the UK again.

The agreement started to be implemented this year and is ongoing, with some of Albanian prisoners being returned to Albania.

Also in July last year, the UK and Albania signed a separate agreement regulating the removal of Albanians illegally residing in the UK.

In October 2020, BIRN published an investigation into the routes taken and money paid by Albanians to enter the UK illegally. The story identified six main routes: Calais to Dover by lorry; by lorry from the Netherlands; by lorry from Belgium; by ferry from Spain; by plane from Italy or Greece; and by plane from Italy to the UK via Dublin.

Another BIRN investigation published in June 2019 looked at how Albanian gangs in the UK recruit illegal immigrants from Albania’s remote, mountainous north, where poverty is rife.

A Range of Digital Rights Violations Disrupts the Region

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Struggling to collect points and voters ahead of upcoming general elections, politicians and political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina perpetrated numerous digital rights violations.

In North Macedonia and Hungary, BIRN monitoring recorded a spread of fake news by media as well as by organised troll networks, while various forms of cyberattacks targeted state institutions and the media in Romania, Hungary and Bosnia.

Warmongering and hate speech as campaign tools in Bosnia

On July 26, at a gathering organized by the main Bosniak party, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, the party leader, Bakir Izetbegović gave an inflammatory speech which drew condemnation from social media users and politicians.

In his speech, the SDA leader recalled Bosnia’s military strength in the event of a “worst-case scenario”, saying: “We’ve counted ourselves and how many hunters we have, and how many young people, and how many instructors we have on drones, and so on. I won’t go further, but just so you know,” Izetbegović said. The video of the speech was posted on the official page of the SDA and widely shared.


Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bakir Izetbegovic meets with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Not Pictured) at the West Bank City of Ramallah, 29 August 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE/ALAA BADARNEH

Many politicians responded by condemning the rhetoric. Milorad Dodik, Serbian member of the state presidency and leader of the main Bosnian Serb party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, wrote on Twitter: “No one will count us Serbs, not even Muslims, but they should know that there are enough of us.” His statement also sparked hate speech from many social media users as well as warmongering and threatening rhetoric.

The international community’s overseer in Bosnia, the Office of the High Representative, OHR, Christian Schmidt, condemned both Izetbegović speech and Dodik’s reaction.

Women politicians face misogynistic, gender-based insults

As BIRN’s recent research on online gender-based online violence and women’s rights in the Balkans showed, women in politics and women with public profiles are regularly targeted with harassment and gender-based attacks, frequently by their male counterparts, as was demonstrated by BIRN’s monitoring recorded in the second-half of July, particularly in Bosnia.


People participate in a peaceful march on the occasion of International Women’s Day in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 08 March 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

At Sarajevo Canton Assembly, parliamentarians subjected Sabina Ćudić, a representative of Naša stranka (Our Party) and Aleksandra Nikolić, Minister of Science, Higher Education and Youth in Sarajevo Canton, to misogynistic and sexist insults and gender-based attacks.

A recording from the session shows Dževad Poturak, of the Alliance for a Better Future party, SBB, commenting on Nikolić’s dress. Just one day earlier, Ćudić shared a video from the session which shows representatives of the SDA and the Democratic Front, DF, making misogynistic comments about her, mainly about her physical appearance.

Vildana Bešlija, of Naša stranka, after reacting to the misogynistic insults at the session of the assembly, was herself subjected to online harassment. After condemning the sexism and misogyny in the Federation entity parliament and writing about it on social media, Bešlija published the sexist and misogynist insults that she herself had received in the form of online private messages.

After these latest gender-based attacks on female politicians, the Gender Equality Agency of Bosnia issued guidelines on the topic for politicians, parties and legislative bodies in the country.

Cyberattacks against media on rise across region

StirileProTV, one of the most widely read news sites in Romania, was hit with a cyberattack. On July 25, Romania’s National Cybersecurity Directorate warned that trolls are spreading fake news on websites which mimic the visual identity of StirileProTV. This is not only an attack on the media but a danger to the users who access the cloned websites. The Cybersecurity Directorate said cybercriminals are drawing in potential victims to steal their bank card details and personal information under the guise of investments in cryptocurrencies.

Just a few days before, an online portal in Bosnia and Herzegovina was subjected to a hacker attack. The editor-in-chief of Buka, Aleksandar Trifunović, said administrators of the portal’s Facebook page were unable to edit posts, upload or perform any other action on the page as a result. Buka has come under dozens of similar attacks on its webpage, however this seems to be the first attack on its Facebook page.

Similarly, in Hungary, the website of Mandiner.hu, a right-wing, pro-government media outlet, was hacked on July 23.  After articles on the portal appeared with a rainbow-coloured background on the day of Budapest Pride, the outlet told readers that this was a result of another hacker attack.

Wrongful processing of citizens’ personal data in Romania, Bosnia

In Romania, millions of vaccinated citizens received WhatsApp and SMS messages warning them about the expiry of their COVID-19 vaccination certificates.

Andrei Baciu, secretary of state in the Health Ministry, debunked this misinformation on Facebook. However, while the false news campaign was concerning in itself, such cases also constitute a violation of citizens’ right to privacy and wrongful processing of personal data, especially sensitive data such as health records.


Two Romanian elderly women rest after getting immunized near the entrance of a Covid-19 Marathon Vaccination For Life II center that is organized at Children Palace venue in Bucharest, Romania, 29 October 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

Just a month after cybercriminals targeted Romanian taxpayers with malicious emails which mimicked the identity of the National Tax Agency, the country saw a new phishing campaign in the second half of July, once again copycatting the Tax Agency.

The warning came from the tax agency itself after thousands of citizens received emails containing malicious attachments or URLs. It is not known if Lokibot, a Trojan-type malware used in June’s phishing campaign was behind this attack as well.

Meanwhile, in Bosnia, the SDA party carried out public promotion and paid public advertising through the telecom operator BH Telecom, via SMS messages asking users to vote for SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic in the October elections for the state Presidency. The Central Election Commission of Bosnia on July 22 established that the SDA paid for SMS messages to be sent to thousands of users and fined it 1,000 BAM (around 500 euros).

However, while the Central Elections Commission fined the party for paid political advertising before the official start of the election campaign, such practice also constitutes wrongful processing of citizens’ personal data.

Fake news campaigns in North Macedonia and Hungary; Romania takes action

The second half of July saw the continued spread of false news by different actors across the region.

In North Macedonia, several online news portals published unverified claims stating that former state official Dragi Raskovski, who is now under house arrest pending an ongoing investigation against him, was vacationing in Greece.

As a part of the court procedure, Raskovski’s passport was confiscated by the authorities, but the news portals claimed that he was at a Greek resort after publishing an alleged photo of him and his family. However, the man in the photos has spoken out and publically asked the media not to confuse him with Raskovski.

Meanwhile, an article by a fake news portal is among the four most popular online Hungarian articles on Facebook in July.

Reports suggest that a coordinated troll network may be behind this, as the Facebook page of the portal experienced an unnatural spike in interactions after the war started in Ukraine. According to the analysis, since then the average monthly interactions per follower have skyrocketed, with the current metric being 233 times the previous level.

BIRN monitoring also recorded noteworthy responses by the authorities. On July 21, Romania’s Audiovisual Council withdrew the broadcasting license of News Romania, a television and online media outlet whose editorial management is led by Remus Radoi, a known mobster. The decision was taken after the Council fined the media outlet more than 13 times in the last six months for spreading misinformation about the COVID pandemic as well as for spreading pro-Russian propaganda on the war in Ukraine.

Serbia Proves a Media Market Too Far for Hungary’s TV2… For Now

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Hungary’s TV2 has yet to officially respond over its failure to win a license for terrestrial digital broadcasting in Serbia on Friday, though speculation is growing that the decision by the Serbian media regulator to postpone awarding a fifth license could be designed to allow the Hungarian company more time to raise the necessary funds to finance such a venture.

The omission of TV2 – the largest private TV station in Hungary which leans heavily towards the government of Viktor Orban in its coverage – in the list of licensees was a surprise to many, given the warm relations between the Hungarian prime minister and his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic, as well as suspicions of political influence in the tender after Serbia’s media regulator handed licenses to four reliably pro-government TV stations.

Furthermore, Hungarian business interests allied to the Fidesz government, in the media and other sectors, have been active over the past few years investing in Balkan countries like Slovenia and Montenegro, and many expect further such expansions in the region.

Yet Serbia’s Regulatory Body for Electronic Media, REM, announced on Friday it had granted national TV licenses for broadcasting via terrestrial digital transmission to four TV stations that already had them: Pink, Happy, Prva and B92.

The REM Council said on Friday that, “due to the great interest in obtaining a license for television broadcasting… the Council of REM made a decision to call for a tender for the award of another license for the so-called ‘fifth frequency’”. Fourteen TV stations in total competed in the tender.

REM Council president Olivera Zekic told the media that broadcasters will have to apply again for the fifth frequency and that she expects the process to be over by the end of autumn.

The Hungarian government-allied media did not report on TV2’s failure in Serbia, but insiders are speculating that the delay in awarding the fifth frequency is perhaps no coincidence. Hungary’s economy is suffering from the war in Ukraine, spiralling inflation and a plunging currency, while TV2 itself will face new taxes from next year, meaning it could currently lack the financial means to embark upon such a foreign venture.

TV2 – owned by Orban’s childhood friend Lorinc Meszaros whose stratospheric rise from simple gas fitter to Hungary’s richest person is unparalleled in the democratic world – certainly seemed set on making its foray into Serbia.

Miklos Vaszily, president of TV2, said in an interview in June that his station has a “strategic interest in expanding into the Adriatic or the Balkan region”. He expressed optimism about winning one of the licenses on offer in Serbia, since the station had put together a professionally strong application and he believed “new actors were welcome with the Serbian media authority”.

According to the specialized news site Media1, TV2 established a local company TV2 RS Broadcasting in Serbia with seed capital of 100,000 euros. TV2’s Serbian company – chaired by French-Bulgarian Pavel Stanchev, CEO of both TV2 Group and Slovenian Planet TV, and Spela Pirnat, the Slovenian director of Planet TV – was expected to build on the experiences and business model of the Slovenian broadcaster.

Planet TV, the third biggest Slovenian station, was bought by TV2 in 2020. Given TV2’s notorious pro-Hungarian government propaganda – journalists pledged allegiance to Orban publicly during the spring election campaign – it was of no surprise to observers that Planet TV became a mouthpiece for the nationalist-populist government of former prime minister Janez Jansa, Orban’s ideological ally in Slovenia, until he was voted out of office in the spring.

TV2 also planned to take over RTL Croatia, but that deal did not materialise.

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