Ivana Jeremic, Author at BIRD

Pro-Kremlin Online Rhetoric Thrives in Orban’s Hungary

Posted on April 20, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

After Viktor Orban’s re-election as Hungary’s prime minister for a fourth consecutive term, pro-Russian propaganda continued to spread online in the country despite the Budapest government’s official support for the EU’s imposition of sanctions on Moscow.

Two such cases are documented in this latest bi-weekly review of online violations compiled by BIRN’s monitors in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia.

Meanwhile, journalists have been targeted online in Serbia and Romania, while recordings of conversations published online highlight political frictions and cases of alleged graft in Bosnia and North Macedonia

Ukraine war misinformation spread in Hungary

Despite voting for EU sanctions and showing humanitarian support for refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, Hungary continues to show some reluctance to fully join the European bloc in condemning the Russian invasion.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban, after his fourth electoral victory on April 3, cited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as his opponent in his victory speech, confirmed he will not take any action against the Russia-founded International Investment Bank and insisted that Russia’s Rosatom would continue building a new nuclear power plant in Hungary.

Given this context, it is clear why pro-Russian propaganda is so widespread in Hungary, where pro-government media support Orban’s ruling party Fidesz.

Deputy Prime Minister of Hungary and President of the Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) Zsolt Semjen (L) and the head of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyas hold a press conference after closing the polling stations for the general election and national referendum on the child protection law in the Balna convention center in Budapest, Hungary, 03 April 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/SZILARD KOSZTICSAK

On April 4, thousands of Hungarian Facebook users started sharing pictures of a man covered in Nazi tattoos, claiming that he was the “deputy police chief of Kyiv”. However, the man, whose name was Artem Bonov, did not appear in the list of employees on the Kyiv Police website and was found to be a well-known far-right activist instead.

On April 8, two separate cases of misinformation and propaganda were recorded in Hungary. In the first of the two, several Hungarian-language Russian propaganda sites and their Facebook pages spread false information that there was no massacre in the Ukrainian town of Bucha and that the reports of civilian casualties were fake.

Some articles that included a video of carnage in Bucha falsely claimed that one of the dead bodies lying on the street was actually moving, that there was evidence that the massacre did not take place, and that recordings made after the recapture of the town were staged.

In the second case, following the adoption of the fifth package of sanctions targeting the Russian and Belarusian economies by the European Parliament, the Hungarian State news agency MTI reported the news as if Fidesz MEPs had not voted in favour of the sanctions.

However, despite a claim by Fidesz party MEP Kinga Gál, who said on Facebook that her fellow Fidesz MEPs voted overwhelmingly against the proposal to impose an embargo on gas, oil and nuclear power from Russia, the EU proposal was supported by Fidesz MEPs.

Journalists targeted in Serbia and Romania

Journalists continue to be verbally attacked by pro-government media and political figures across the region, and the beginning of April saw several incidents in Serbia and Romania.

People walk past a puddle reflecting an election billboard of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade, Serbia, 04 April 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

On April 1, Verica Marincic, a journalist from the town of Indjija in Serbia who works for the IN Medija website, reported that she received serious threats via Facebook.

Marincic said she believes that the threatening messages were connected to an article she published about the behaviour of a local priest who was taken into custody some days earlier after he refused to pay for some items from the local Lidl store.

In another case on April 5, sports journalist Milojko Pantic said his YouTube channel, which also hosts political content critical of the government led by the Serbian Progressive Party, had been removed from the platform without explanation.

Pantic said he believed that the shutdown of his channel was probably related to the release on the YouTube channel of his show about Serbia’s democratic failings, which was uploaded before the parliamentary and presidential elections on April 3.

Meanwhile in Romania, Reporters Without Borders said in a report on its website that press freedom remains vulnerable as “the government’s vision of journalism and freedom of expression encourages censorship and self-censorship”.

The media watchdog added that “mechanisms for funding the media are, in many cases, opaque or even corrupt, and editorial policies are subordinated to the interests of owners, who often use them as propaganda tools”.

In one recent example of the troubled media environment in the country, well-known investigative journalist Emilia Sercan said on April 4 that she was targeted after she published material claiming that Romanian prime minister Nicolae Ciuca plagiarised part of his doctoral thesis.

“In the course of a single month, I was targeted in three separate incidents – threats, defamation and intimidation – all related to my work as an investigative journalist. According to the evidence in my possession, one of the defamatory acts was carried out with the complicity of a certain state institution’s employees,” said Sercan.

She also said she was sent some revealing pictures of herself, taken about 20 years ago by a former fiancé, from an unknown person on Facebook Messenger.

In response to the incident, the International Press Institute and other media freedom NGOs issued an appeal to the Romanian authorities calling for a swift and independent investigation.

Politicians targeted in Bosnia and North Macedonia

The Bosnian political scene remains deeply divided and fractious. In one recent example of this, the Klix.ba website published a recording on which Jelena Trivic, the vice-president of the Party of Democratic Progress and a member of the Republika Srpska National Assembly, is heard threatening former councillor Ivan Begic.

On the recording, which was made ahead of local elections in 2020, Trivic tells Begic, who served on Banja Luka City Council, that he “will be buried”. Klix.ba says the recording has been authenticated, but the Party of Democratic Progress claimed that it was an edited version of the original tape.

Former prime minister of North Macedonia Nikola Gruevski (C) leaves the Budapest-Capital Regional Court after his extradition trial in Budapest, Hungary, 27 June 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/ZOLTAN MATHE

In another incident involving recordings of private conversations published online, this time in North Macedonia, two audio recordings of a conversation allegedly between former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and businessman Orce Kamchev were released by an unknown source on April 3.

In the conversation, voices appearing to be those of Gruevski and Kamchev discuss a court case in which they are both involved. The voice that is claimed to be that of Kamchev says that he gave a statement saying that Gruevski had nothing to do with buying plots of land on Mount Vodno for 1.2 million euros. The authenticity of the recordings has not yet been confirmed.

Fake news, cyberattacks and other online violations

Incidents of disinformation and unverified claims, as well as cases of cyber fraud, continue to be a problem in many countries’ digital environments.

In Bosnia, a spoof article saying that Apple has created wedding rings that allow couples to monitor their spouses’ movements went viral after it was published by the Zanimljivo satirical humour website. The article was reposted as genuine news even though the fact-finding site Raskrinkavanje reported that it was not intended to be taken seriously.

Another case saw several online media and news websites in North Macedonia post unverified claims about the death of Croatian handball player Denis Toth, who is believed to have died as a result of injuries sustained in a fight after leaving a nightclub in Skopje. The unverified claims sparked a lot of speculation on social media in the country about the reason for Toth’s death.

Police were forced to intervene in North Macedonia after the reappearance of a notorious Telegram group entitled Public Room, a forum for sharing explicit photos of young women. The latest iteration of the group, in which photos, videos, information from social networks and phone numbers of girls and women in the country were posted, had close to 1,500 members. After a few days, the police intervened and the group was closed down.

Finally, the National Directorate for Cyber Security in Romania said there had been a massive increase in cyber-attacks against state institutions and private companies in the initial days of the war in Ukraine. It claimed that Russian IPs had been involved in reconnaissance attacks on Romanian state and private companies in the energy sector.

Serbia Targets Purchase of Powerful Swedish Facial Recognition Software

Posted on April 12, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Serbia’s interior ministry planned to buy Swedish-made facial recognition software last year and still might despite deep concern over the legality of such technology under the country’s current legislation, BIRN can report.

According to the manufacturer, Griffeye Analyze DI Pro has the capacity to recognise faces based only on the eyes and, under certain conditions, even when the eyes are not visible. Experts say it can also download large amounts of personal data from the internet and then search, sort, cross and process it based on metadata such as GPS coordinates, the time when an image was taken or phone serial numbers.

The software, which Europol has used since 2019, was on a ministry procurement wish-list for the third quarter of 2021. The purchase has not been made and the ministry did not respond to BIRN requests for comment. But Serbia’s Personal Data Protection Commissioner, Milan Marinovic, said police were unlikely to pass up the opportunity to acquire such technology.

“The idea was to get that technology by the end of 2021. I am convinced that the Ministry of Interior has not given up on it,” Marinovic told BIRN. “No police in the world would give up on such things because it suits them.”

He questioned the legality under current Serbian law, however.

“We are talking about a global threat that I do not like. The software can also physically track you,” said Marinovic. “In Serbia, we do not have the right to such a sophisticated type of data processing of citizens.”

In September 2020, the interior ministry announced a Draft Law on Internal Affairs containing contained provisions for the legalisation of an extensive biometric video surveillance system. It was withdrawn after public outcry.

“Once the system is in place, it means it will be very difficult to remove and it is an irreversible situation,” said Bojan Perkov of the Belgrade-based SHARE Foundation, which promotes human rights and freedoms online.

Griffeye did not respond to a request for comment, but its website says the software is intended to support investigators working on cases involving the sexual abuse of children. SHARE’s Filip Milosevic said it is a threat to privacy.

“Quick, easy and complete insight into the life of each individual,” Milosevic told BIRN.

“Such tools create very detailed profiles of individuals by crossing absolutely all their existing digital information. This can be information owned by the state, and the police can get access – traffic, cameras, financial system, health, social – complemented by data that citizens leave as a digital trace using devices and the Internet, such as Internet searches, site visits, applications, profiles on social networks, history of shopping, movements, interaction with other people.”

Powerful Albanian Businessmen Pick up Struggling TV Channels

Posted on April 12, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Powerful, politically-connected businessman Shefqet Kastrati has entered Albania’s crowded media market with the purchase on Monday of Euronews Albania, following in the footsteps of Samir Mane who bought TV SCAN last month.

Balfin Group, 100 per cent owned by Mane, bought TV SCAN in March for 700,000 euros. TV SCAN is a small operator, controlling just 2.9 per cent of the TV advertising market in 2020, according to financial data analysed by BIRN. At the end of that year, TV SCAN had racked up losses of some 470,000 euros.

Mane has business interests in a wide range of sectors, from food and clothing to electricity, minerals, construction, and tourism.

On Monday, Kastrati’s Kastrati Group said it had bought 60 per cent of shares in Intermedia Group, which owns Euronews Albania, for an undisclosed sum. It announced plans to expand into Kosovo and North Macedonia.

Euronews Albania was founded in 2019 under a franchise agreement with Euronews, the European news network owned by a Portuguese company linked to the family circle of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Kastrati has interests in fuel, construction, tourism and insurance, besides owning the concessionary firms operating the highway linking Albania and Kosovo and Tirana International Airport.

Euronews hit the ground running in Albania, reporting revenues of some 214 million leks, roughly 1.8 million euros, in 2020 or some 5.3 per cent of the market. It accumulated some 59 million leks of losses, however, during the first two years of operations, eating into some 60 per cent of the subscribed capital.

The Albanian television market is dominated by Klan and Top Channel, the two main operators with combined revenues accounting for some 63 per cent of the total market turnover.

The market, however, is far from transparent.

On Monday, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Ylli Ndroqi, a media owner in Albania, for using media outlets formerly under his control to “extort and blackmail Albanian citizens through demands for money and advertising purchases in exchange for withholding publication of negative media stories.”

Earlier this month, an administrative row within Top Channel, the country’s leading operator, caused a war of words between the management and the recently fired director of a major show, with each accusing the other of blackmail and corruption.

Montenegro’s Divided Govt Finally Silences Russian Media

Posted on April 8, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Montenegro’s government on Friday finally suspended the broadcasting of Russian Today and Sputnik in line with European Union sanctions on Russia related to its war on Ukraine.

The government adopted the measures on Friday, more than five weeks after it joined EU sanctions on Moscow on March 1.

Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic said the move covers a wide package of restrictions on Russian officials, banks, companies and media.

“I am satisfied with the government’s decision, as the majority of ministers understood that it was important for the state. Those measures will have an economic impact,” Abazovic told the media. “If we reduced everything to economic logic, we would have a dilemma. But this is political logic,” he added.

In supporting EU sanctions, the would-be EU member committed itself to ban on Russian overflight of its airspace and access to its airports. It also banned transactions with the Russian Central Bank and joined the SWIFT ban on seven Russian banks.

On March 2, the EU suspended the broadcasting of Sputnik and Russia Today in all member states, accusing the outlets of spreading disinformation and manipulating information about Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The Podgorica government has now suspended all broadcasting licenses or approvals for Russian sponsored media, prohibiting broadcasting by any means, such as cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications.

Only seven of the 12 government ministers reportedly supported the measures, reflecting deep East-West divisions in the country.

Minister of Agriculture Aleksandar Stijovic abstained from voting while Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic was absent in Greece. Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Vesna Bratic, Health Minister Jelena Borovinic Bojovic and Minister of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism Ratko Mitrovic were also absent.

On Friday the US ambassador in Podgorica, Judy Rising Reinke, welcomed the government’s decision.

“It’s important to see a friend, partner and ally join EU sanctions, which are designed to undercut Russia’s ability to fund its inhumane, unjustified and unprovoked war on the people of Ukraine,” Reinke posted on Twitter.

But one of the leaders of the largest bloc in the ruling coalition, the pro-Russian Democratic Front’s Milan Knezevic, said the measures will damage the economy.

The Minister of Finance and Social Care, Milojko Spajic, said tourist income would drop due to the measures. “Every year around 23 per cent of tourists who come [here] are from Russia and Ukraine,” Spajic told television Vijesti.

Opinion in Montenegro is divided about Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. The country’s large ethnic Serbian community is traditionally sympathetic to Russia, while other communities are far less so. The smallest bloc in the government, Black on White, supports the EU sanctions, but the largest bloc, the Democratic Front, opposes them.

Greek Post Restarts Services After Cyber-Attack Downs System

Posted on April 6, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Hellenic Post, ELTA, announced on Wednesday that it had restarted the system that enables objects and items to be sent abroad after a cyber-attack brought the computers down.

Days before, financial services and the sending of simple correspondence were also re-activated. The suspension of these operations, among other things, has caused delays in the payment of pensions.

After the cyber-attack in March brought down the ELTA computer systems, the company isolated the entire data centre and temporarily suspended the commercial information systems of all post offices.

The cyber-attack, aimed at crippling the operations of ELTA, started from malicious zero-time software, which was installed on a workstation and, with the ‘HTTPS reverse shell technique”, connected to a computer system controlled by the cyber group, said ELTA.

Kathimerini newspaper also reported that the hackers used ransomware – nowadays the most common form of corporate cyberattacks. Most times, the victim receives a phishing email including a malicious link or is infected with a ransomware attachment.

“This specific malware, when executed, encrypts part of the victim’s hard drive and, in order for the victim to receive the decryption key and retrieve the data, a ransom must be paid to the attacker,” Dimitris Aretis, Senior Manager EY Cybersecurity Consulting, told BIRN.

“Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies is used as the form of payment as it provides anonymity to the attacker and makes the transfer of funds untraceable,” he added.

US President Joe Biden on March 22 warned US companies of potential Russian cyber-attackers. But a source from ELTA told BIRN that Russian hackers were not involved in this case.

The Communications Privacy Protection Authority, ADAE, which is responsible for the criminal investigation of the case, declined to comment to BIRN on the issue.

On January 17, two hospitals in the Attika region, Sotiria and Asklipieio Voulas, fell victim of cyber blackmailers who used the same type of ransomware.

Panagiotis Stathis, chief of the 1st Health District of Attica, told BIRN that the hackers attacked the servers of the hospitals. The hackers did not get access to patients’ personal health data but only to the hospitals’ invoices and visitors. Sources told BIRN that the investigation into these cases is still ongoing.

Election Hostilities Shake Serbia and Hungary

Posted on April 6, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Political clashes, smear campaigns and attacks on political opponents dominated the election campaign period in Serbia and Hungary in the second half of March.

Ahead of general elections held on April 3 in both Hungary and Serbia, online incidents of political rivalry and nationalist propaganda were also recorded. Hungary also saw an increase in cases of homophobia in the lead-up to the controversial referendum on LGBTQ+ gay rights.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, meanwhile, media and TV reporters received threats and other offensive gestures from political figures in the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD, the main Bosnian Serb party. In North Macedonia and Romania, where nationalist rhetoric is on the rise, more clashes occurred between ruling parties and political opponents.

Elections in Hungary and Serbia stimulate tensions

National elections were held on April 3 in both Hungary and Serbia. In Serbia, the parliamentary election coincided with presidential and local elections in 12 municipalities, including the capital, Belgrade.

Hungary went to the polls to elect a new parliament and cast votes in a controversial government-initiated referendum on LGBTQ+ rights.

Serbia’s main opposition parties, according to earlier polls, had little chance of beating the ruling Progressive Party-Socialist Party coalition and struggled to be heard.

In the event, President Aleksandar Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, secured an easy victory in the presidential and parliamentary elections.

After Vucic’s main presidential rival, Zdravko Ponos, a retired general and former diplomat, appeared on the political talk show of Serbia, “Utisak Nedelje” (“Impression of the Week”), some voters speculated that Ponos might snatch away the votes from the SNS and represent a break with the past conduct of the opposition.

Incumbent Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speaks during his pre-election rally in Belgrade, Serbia, 31 March 2022. Serbia will be holding general elections on 03 April 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

In a case recorded on March 18, the YouTube channel of Nacionalna Televizija Happy (National TV Happy), a privately-owned TV channel in Serbia with national coverage, removed a video from its morning programme that featured a heated political debate involving the political analyst Boban Stojanović.

In the show, Stojanović, criticising the economic policy of the ruling SNS, asked his interlocutors if they knew how much salaries had risen since the fall of former leader Slobodan Milosevic in 1999, noting that the current salaries in Serbia were the lowest ever, since then.

In Hungary, tensions and partisan attacks ahead of the parliamentary elections were no less fierce than in Serbia.

Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party again won the election, and he is about to start his fourth successive term as prime minister.

In his victory speech, Orban criticised Brussels bureaucrats and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling them “opponents”.

[Zelensky has criticised Hungary’s refusal to unequivocally condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or allow lethal weapons destined for Ukraine to cross Hungary.]

Smear campaigns and attacks on political opponents, which most likely will continue in the post-election period, were Fidesz’s trademark in the run-up to the elections.

On March 15, Fidesz’s political rivals were targeted by the Hungarian state news agency MTI which took a photo of an opposition rally before the demonstration had actually begun.

The photo showed far fewer people than were later present at the event. Several newspapers, on the basis of this photo, said that very few people attended the demonstration, and some reported wrongly that the planned march was cancelled for this reason.

In another episode on March 22, the government sent an election campaign letter using the email addresses people had submitted to register for COVID vaccinations. The email, which attacked both the EU and the opposition, read that, “some Brussels leaders want to punish Russia at all costs, and they also want punitive measures that would place an additional unpaid burden on the shoulders of European citizens, including Hungarians”.

Justice Minister Judit Varga, echoing the government’s anti-EU campaign, also claimed incorrectly that Hungary did not receive any EU help in “stopping migration” in a post published on Facebook last March 23.

Homophobia surges ahead of disputed referendum

The Fidesz-sponsored referendum on LGBTQ+ rights, which coincided with the date of the general elections, also prompted numerous violations in the Hungarian digital space.

A ballot paper is stamped by an election official at a polling station during the general election and national referendum on the child protection law in Budapest, Hungary, 03 April 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/Zoltan

Although the referendum failed to become binding, as less than half of those entitled to vote cast ballots, the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in the country will likely remain under threat following Fidesz’s landslide election victory.

Following a case in early March, in which the szentkoronaradio.hu website published a list of names and photos of teachers who have supported LGBTQ+ rights, other incidents have occurred.

On March 23, CitizenGO Hungary, a local branch of a far-right advocacy group founded in Madrid, and the website vasárnap.hu, a portal linked to the junior ruling KDNP party, published homophobic articles linking homosexuality with paedophilia.

Vasárnap.hu also launched an appeal for people to go to the polls in the referendum, claiming that laws on the protection of children in Hungary were inadequate, and that the demands of LGBT rights groups were unfounded.

Reporters threatened and insulted in Bosnia

In 2016, after Bosnian Security Minister Dragan Mektic’s hearing in court, BIRN confirmed the opening of an investigation into Pavlovica Banka, a bank based in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, concerning a loan that Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik took out to buy a villa in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

After several years, the case continues to occupy space in the public debate and online.

Moilorad Dodik, Chairman of Bosnian Presidency (L), and Zeljko Komsic (R), member of Bosnian Presicency, attend a press conference after a meeting with Slovenian President Borut Pahor (not pictured) in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 05 March 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

On March 22, after giving a statement to the Prosecutor’s Office about his purchase of the villa, Dodik showed his middle finger to journalists from his car. After the picture of the offensive gesture went viral, Dodik later apologized, saying he had over-reacted after he recognized a television team that he thought was leading a media hunt against him.

Media journalists were also targeted in another case recorded on March 26, when Rajko Vasić a member of the main board and former secretary of Dodik’s SNSD, threatened on Twitter to blow up the television building of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Radio Television, BHRT.

BHRT owes large debts to the tax administration of Bosnia’s Federation entity. For these reasons, its accounts are blocked, and it faces complete suspension.

Commenting on its difficult financial situation, Vasić, said he would “blow up” the TV building “if others were ashamed to do so”. In response, Damir Arnaut, an MP in the Bosnian parliament and a member of the Party for a Better Future, filed a complaint with the authorities, accusing Vasić of terrorism.

Fake news targets North Macedonian officials

After last year’s political crisis, partisan attacks still mark the current scenario in North Macedonia. In Romania, similarly, clashes between the ruling party and its opponents mixed with a rise in populist and nationalist rhetoric dominate both institutional and online domains.

On March 25, two North Macedonian officials, public prosecutor Fatime Fetai and Justice Minister Nikola Tupanchevski, were targeted with fake news published in several news portals regarding their trip to Palermo for a football match between Italy and North Macedonia.

Aleksandar Trajkovski (L) of North Macedonia celebrates after scoring during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 play-off qualifying soccer match between Italy and North Macedonia at the Renzo Barbera stadium in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, 24 March 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/CARMELO

Online media and various journalists claimed that Fetai and Tupanchevski were there on a state-sponsored trip and that their costs were covered by North Macedonia’s Football Federation. Both denied the claims and stated that they personally paid for their trips.

In Romania, parliament on March 14 passed a controversial law making incitement of political-based discrimination a crime. A person found guilty of this may now be sentenced from six months to three years in jail.

It was the second time the law came before parliament. An earlier version was turned back by the Constitutional Court, after a complaint launched by Romania’s President. This time too, a constitutional complaint against the new version of the law was initiated by the Union to Save Romania party. “It’s obvious that this law can give authorities the idea of opening criminal cases against political opponents. But the old law could also have been used in such a way,” commented Diana Hatneanu, a lawyer at the Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania – the Helsinki Committee.

Censorship and Blackmail Accusations Rock Albania’s Top TV Station

Posted on April 1, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

An unknown person on Top Channel’s show Top Story’s Facebook page on Thursday sent shockwaves across Albania after claiming that the TV channel’s bosses had cancelled the airing of an important documentary entitled “The Oligarchs of the Urban Renaissance”.

“This #Investigation sheds light on abuses and corruption in town centre reconstructions carried over the last eight years,” the anonymous statement read.

“Top Story staff have been under pressure from the directors, starting from the way in which themes were dealt with to the firing of the show’s director,” it adds.

Shortly after, Top Channel issued a statement naming former director Endrit Habilaj as the author of the Facebook post, and accusing him of blackmail. The channel called the statement defamatory and said Habilaj had been fired for breach of ethics.

“Our legal team is preparing the documents and will forward them to the authorities to ascertain the legal responsibilities and damages that the individuals caused the company by using the profession and the show as a tool for extortion and threats, also misusing foreign donations,” the statement read.

It claimed that the doc was axed for breach of ethics.

“When the board analyzed the materials and observed serious ethical and professional breaches, it decided to not air this extortion, done in the name of two individuals who once worked for Top Channel but not in the interests of the truth,” the statement added.

Habilaj, who anchored the show for four years, responded by accusing the CEO and owner of Top Channel, Vjollca Hoxha, of a list of extortion campaigns against other businessmen and state officials.

He denied authoring the statement on the show’s Facebook page and dismissed claims that the canceled show was an act of blackmail.

“’Oligarchs of the Urban Resonance’ was not produced by me but by Esmeralda Keta, the winner of two EU Awards [on Investigative Journalism],” Habilaj said.

“This show was produced through an EU-funded project,” he added, listing several alleged acts of blackmail carried out by channel owner Hoxha.

Habilaj is also an entrepreneur who owns two companies whose stated activities are media production, marketing and media buying.

A number of businessmen in Albania have been targeted as “oligarchs” in reference to their alleged sway over the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Rama has claimed these “oligarchs” do not exist and has accused the media of using its own influence on public opinion to extort money from businesses.

Turkey Threatens to Jail Journalists Reporting Critically on Companies

Posted on March 28, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, has submitted a new bill to parliament criminalizing critical news reports about companies.

According to the proposed law, journalists may be jailed for up to three years as well as face fines for having “deliberately created a report that could damage the reputation, trust and wealth of the company through the media”.

“Turkey’s ranking in press freedom and freedom of expression indexes has been showing a steady decline for years. Unfortunately, with steps taken like the most recent preparation to penalise journalists’ work citing the alleged protection of commercial images, it will take yet another hit,” Gurkan Ozturan, Media Freedom Rapid Response Coordinator at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, ECPMF, told BIRN.

“Journalists and journalism cannot be punished [for such reports]; it is not a crime,” he added.

Ozturan said the bill proposes to stiffen the protection of commercial entities by empowering them to lead strategic lawsuits against public participation, often known as SLAPPs, which are used increasingly to silence and target journalists.

According to the proposed law, the law will be applicable even if the name of the relevant company is not mentioned in the news report.

If private or public harm is done to the company as a result of the news report, the penalty may be increased further by one-sixth.

“While in the European Union, which the Turkish government aspires to be part of, there are steps to create protection for media freedom and journalists against such acts, Turkey seems to be heading in the opposite direction,” Ozurtan said.

“Also, as part of the same bill, there is provisionally going to be a reduction in the punishment for tax evasion,” Ozturan noted, saying the proposed law does not seem compatible either with the rules of the free market or with the principles of media freedom.

Erdogan’s government has been accused before of favouring certain private companies by delivering them large public tenders, multibillion construction projects and tax reductions.

The opposition says the new draft law clearly aims to protect those companies.

Turkey was ranked in 153th place out of 180 countries in 2021 in the latest press freedom index of the watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders, RSF, which classifies the Turkish government’s control over media outlets as high.

According a recent report published by Association of Journalists, 241 journalists were put on trial and 115 physically attacked in Turkey in 2021.

Five Journalists Killed in First Month of Ukraine War

Posted on March 24, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

A month after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine, at least five media workers are among hundreds of civilians who have been killed so far, raising fears that journalists are being intentionally targeted for attack.

Oksana Baulina, a Russian journalist working for independent news site The Insider, was the most recent to be killed earlier this week.

Baulina, who formerly worked for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption organisation before leaving Russia, “died under fire in Kyiv”, The Insider said on Wednesday. “She was filming the destruction after Russian troops shelled the Podil district of the capital,” it added.

Media freedom campaign group Reporters Without Borders last week called on the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, who is probing war crimes in Ukraine, to also investigate crimes committed against journalists by Russian forces.

“At least eight journalists or media crews have been deliberately targeted by Russian forces or have been the victims of indiscriminate bombardment,” Reporters Without Borders said.

On March 1, Ukrainian camera operator Yevhenii Sakun was killed during a Russian strike on a television tower in Kyiv – one of a series of allegedly deliberate strikes on radio and TV towers since the start of the war, aimed at silencing Ukrainian media.

US journalist and film-maker Brent Renaud died on March 13 when the car in which he was travelling with his colleagues came under fire in the town of Irpin.

The following day, Franco-Irish camera operator Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra Kuvshynova, who were both reporting the war for Fox News, were killed when their car was hit by gunfire in Horenka, a village some 20 miles from Kyiv.

Reporters Without Borders has said that a TV crew from Britain’s Sky News, a Czech team from the Voxpot media outlet, a Swiss journalist and an Al Araby TV crew have also been intentionally targeted in attacks.

Several other journalists have gone missing or have been detained by Russian forces since the war began, including Viktoria Roshchina, a reporter for Ukraine’s Hromadske TV, who was released on Monday after ten days in captivity.

“Multiple journalists have gone missing or been detained under murky circumstances since the war began, and these incidents only serve to harass the press and stifle independent reporting,” said Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia programme coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Two Associated Press journalists in the besieged port city of Mariupol have described how managed to escape what they believed was a targeted attempt by Russian soldiers to detain them because of their graphic reporting of Moscow’s sustained assault on civilian areas, including the killing of children.

“They had a list of names, including ours,” wrote AP journalist Mstyslav Chernov after he and his colleague managed to flee.

Albanian Journalists Threatened by Suspected Gang Member’s Staff

Posted on March 23, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

Albania’s Media Authority, AMA, on Wednesday condemned the manhandling and threatening of a journalist and camera operator from Top Channel, Albania’s leading television channel.

The journalists were targeted by unidentified employees at Ovvital, a poultry farm owned by a suspected crime gang member, Top Channel said on Tuesday.

In a video aired by the station, an unknown staffer is heard telling the crew that he knew how to “cut women into pieces”.

“Earlier I was the one who could cut a woman into pieces, but now I have a little girl myself,” the man is heard saying, threatening a female journalist.

“The employees [of the company] manhandled the journalists and used physical and psychological violence. They also damaged their equipment,” the AMA said, deeming the event “a flagrant violation against freedom of speech”.

The journalists were reporting a bird flu pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of chickens at several farms in central Albania, causing the price of eggs to skyrocket.

Ovvital, the company where the incident occurred, is owned by Xhevdet Troplini, who, according to Albanian Police is suspected of being member of an organized crime group. However, an investigation into him in 2020 yielded no results.