Media Archives

Kosovo Bans Serbia Sport TV Channels Over Messages ‘Glorifying’ Banjska Attack

Posted on October 5, 2023October 14, 2023 by BIRD

Kosovo’s Independent Media Commission, IMC, on Tuesday urged a halt to broadcasts of Serbian sport TV channels, days after they carried messages supporting the armed Serbs killed during in shootout with Kosovo Police in Serb-majority northern Kosovo on September 24.

“We urge distribution operators to stop broadcasting Arena [Sport] channels,” the head of the IMC Board, Jeton Mehmeti, said in a meeting in which five members of the board supported the ban.

“We now have evidence that Arena Sport channels … broadcasted video messages which come from Serbia and contained glorifications of the terrorist attack in the north, and represent threatening messages to Kosovo citizens,” Mehmeti said.

The decision affects ten Arena Sport channels which are carried on Kosovo’s main cable TV platforms.

Art Motion, one of the Kosovo cable TV networks which carries Arena Sport channels, did not respond to BIRN’s request for comment on Wednesday over the IMC decision. Arena Sport is owned by Telekom Srbija company.

Another cable provider, IPKO, told BIRN on Friday that it will respect the decision “until the provider of these channels fixes this matter definitively with the IMC”.

The IMC is an independent institution responsible for the regulation, management and oversight of the broadcasting frequency spectrum in Kosovo.

Two days before the decision, Mehmeti said the IMC received complaints from viewers that, during the half-time break and after football matches, Arena Sport channels broadcasted messages in support of the armed gunmen who attacked Kosovo Police on September 24 in the village of Banjska in the northern municipality of Zubin Potok. A Kosovo Police officer and three of the gunmen were killed in the shootout.

The other attackers managed to escape through mountainous terrain.

Graphics shown on the TV screen bore the messages: “We will remember” and “Glory to heroes” with a photo of Banjska Monastery, Serbia’s coat of arms and the date “24.09.2023” together with the inscription “Manastir Banjska” at the bottom left of the screen.

The aftermath of the attack has caused controversies inside Kosovo’s public broadcaster, Radio Television of Kosovo, RTK. On September 30, its board suspended Zeljko Tvrdisic, the director of RTK 2, the channel broadcasting in the Serbian language. According to the announcement, the suspension is valid for 30 days.

“After a detailed discussion … regarding the chronicle broadcast on the news of RTK2 dated September 28, 2023, following the proposal of the general director, the Board of RTK has unanimously decided to suspend from office for a period of 30 days the director of RTK 2, Zeljko Tvrdisic,” media cited the RTK Board as saying.

According to the media, RTK 2 news had described the three Serbian gunmen killed in the police action in Banjska as “victims”.

The management of RTK has said it will conduct a detailed analysis of the situation to identify violations of professional standards. RTK has warned of other disciplinary measures.

But the original RTK2 news article that BIRN has seen in fact used the word “stradali” for the killed Serbs, which in Serbian means “died”, “killed”, or “perished”, not “victims”, which is “zrtve” in Serbian.

Tvrdisic told BIRN that he is waiting for the internal commission of the public broadcaster, formed on October 3, to finish its evaluation and inform him about the decision.

He said that it was “scandalous” that he was informed about his suspension by the media on September 30 and only received the official note from RTK on Monday, October 2.

“I am confident that I have acted in accordance with professional standards, the ethics code and the law. The problem is we reported on an event in [the town of] Gracanica, where the lighting of candles for the murdered was organised. It was also stated as a problem that, in a statement, we had the President of the Serbian Journalists Association, who used the word ‘Metohija’,” Tvrdisic told BIRN.

Serbia officially uses the expression “Kosovo and Metohija” for Kosovo – a term which many Kosovars see as implying a Serbian character to Kosovo.

Albanian Tax Inspectors Fine Critical Media Outlets

Posted on February 28, 2023March 1, 2023 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”.

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

Posted on February 15, 2023February 23, 2023 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.

Call for Applications for Internship Programme

Posted on September 5, 2022January 26, 2023 by BIRD

As part of its Investigative Reporting Initiative programme, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network is looking for five journalism students who wish to learn from dedicated journalists and editors in a course of three months.

The programme will provide the successful candidates with a key theoretical foundation, followed by systematic but very practical investigative work. The selected candidates will receive online training from experienced journalists at the beginning of the programme and
spend the rest of the internship working on investigative stories, while receiving support to understand and learn about the most relevant procedures.

BIRN is offering the five placements to applicants from six Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. You will work from home or from your newsroom, as the programme is due to take place online.

Who can apply?

Journalism students from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.

How to apply?

Applicants should submit the following documents to ivana.nikolic@birnnetwork.org in English before September 21, at midnight Central European Time:

● Applicant’s CV (in English)
● Motivation letter (in English)

● Work sample (translated into English; school assignments are eligible)
● Evidence of status (in English or local language)

The motivation letter should show how you expect to benefit from the programme and your motivation to participate.

Applicants that do not have any published work can submit their student assignments from practical courses in journalism.

Applicants should provide evidence of their current situation. This evidence should include, but not be limited to, confirmation of enrolment at university.

Language:

All applications must be submitted in English; proof of status may be in local languages. The programme’s working language will be English, so advanced knowledge of the English language is required.

DURATION OF INTERNSHIP: October 1, 2022 to December 23, 2022.
DEADLINE: September 21, 2022, at midnight Central European Time

Turkey’s Communications Chief Accuses Reuters of ‘Manipulation’

Posted on September 1, 2022January 26, 2023 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 August 30, 2022January 26, 2023 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.

Turkish Journalists Demand New State Advertising Law After Court Ruling

Posted on August 12, 2022January 26, 2023 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 August 11, 2022January 26, 2023 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”.

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

Posted on August 1, 2022January 26, 2023 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.

Kosovo’s Online Media Lack Resources to Combat Fake News: Report

Posted on July 19, 2022January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

The Press Council of Kosovo published a report on Monday entitled Misinformation, Disinformation and Fake News in Online Media in Kosovo, which concluded that online media in the country lack the staff to deal with these issues and the money to train journalists in ethical and professional reporting.

The Press Council, a self-regulatory body which includes most of Kosovo’s media, surveyed 18 online media in Kosovo for the report, as well as interviewing media and legal experts.

“Representatives of [state] institutions should have been part of the report but they did not respond to our invitation,” said the head of the Press Council, Imer Mushkolaj.

“It is worrying that institutions ask media to be disciplined but they do not follow the procedures of complaint in cases in which they claim they have been slandered by the media,” Mushkolaj added.

The executive director of the Kosovo Association of Journalists, Getoarbe Mulliqi Boja, said that most fake news is circulated by websites published by interest groups, which are not registered as media outlets.

“Institutions increase disinformation by not giving statements to journalists who, based on the requests of the media they work at, for to get information via secondary sources,” Mulliqi Boja added.

However, the Press Council’s report concluded that there are journalists who directly cause the spread of fake news.

Qerim Ondozi, the author of the report, explained that it was concluded that many media do not follow the Press Council’s ethical code or are not aware of what it says.

Ondozi said that “confusion exists when it comes to internal regulations, when we asked about their existence we were expecting the answers to be related to the Press Council of Kosovo ethics code, however we had various answers, including ‘it is on the wall at the newsroom’”.

Seven out of 18 online media outlets that were surveyed said that they do not have written editorial policies, which increases “the difficulty of practices to identify and verify fake news”, the report says.

Six out of the 18 surveyed said they only have two editors, while at least one online media has no editors, and one has 15 editors.

The report also says that only eight out of the 18 online media have sub-editors. It says this is a source of great concern because “a sub-editor can be the one to identify the presence of elements of fake news”.

Almost half of the online media do not provide their staff with training opportunities for professional development, which is also problematic in combatting fake news, the report says.

The report’s respondents mentioned the lack of financial resources as a problem as well media organizations often being small. At around 40 per cent of the outlets, the owner is also the director.

The lack of financial resources directly influences the “lack of professional staff”, which Mushkolaj considers to be one of the main issues.

The Press Council report recommends that media increase capacities and training, use clear practices in identifying sources and facts prior to publication, and follow professional standards.

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