Tag: balkan insight

Turkish Police announced on Thursday that they have detained two people in an operation in Izmir province over a video in which the two men claim that an organised crime gang had been assigned after “an auction” to assassinate a well-known journalist, Murat Agirel.

“Suspects were detained at their residences in Izmir, and 3 guns, some narcotics, 4 mobile phones and 1 tripod were seized along with the individuals,” police said in statement on Thursday. They added that the suspects had previously committed other criminal offences.

Police said the two suspects claim in the video that, following what they called an “auction”, “the leader of the organised crime organisation Mahsun Kurucay will carry out an armed attack on journalist Murat Agirel”.

Agirel has frequently faced targeting for his investigative reporting.

“I have received similar intelligence before and have repeatedly informed the authorities,” Agirel wrote on X on September 3. “However, the people who wait in front of my house every day, watch me and rummage through my garbage demonstrate the reality of these threats.

“I face a new death threat every day. There is pressure to ban my books, there is constant surveillance in front of my house and lawsuits are being filed one after another. Regardless of the seriousness of today’s threat, it is my duty to inform the public while fighting for this country,” he added.

A report from Turkey’s Media and Law Studies Association MLSA, published in 2023, said the majority of Turkish journalists say they feel unsafe while doing their work because of physical assaults and online attacks. More than 80 per cent of them said they had encountered physical violence in the last five years and 79 per cent had been attacked online at least once during the same period.

The ‘Elections Without Hate’ conference in Sarajevo this week. Photo: BIRN.

Ahead of local elections in October in Bosnia and Herzegovina, members of the public are using a new online platform, stopgovormrznje.com (Stop Hate Speech), to report hate speech they have noticed on websites, other media, social networks and at public gatherings, anonymously and online.

Vernes Voloder, from the Nansen Dialogue Centre in Mostar, said too many politicians use aggressive language to score political points, often unaware of the consequences such rhetoric can have.

“That’s why we developed a tool through an online platform that provides key information on what constitutes hate speech, what inflammatory rhetoric is, how to recognise it in our society, and how we as ordinary citizens can help curb this,” Voloder said at the Elections Without Hate conference, where the platform was presented on Wednesday. 

Voloder said that the platform had already received 250 reports of hate speech and inflammatory rhetoric since it was first activated in April, 70 per cent of them concerning statements made in the media, 20 per cent statements at public gatherings, and only 10 per cent posts on social media.

“We are conducting a review of those 250 reports. Our legal team will go through these reports and forward them to relevant institutions – the Central Election Commission and relevant entity-level and state institutions,” he said.

Vanja Bjelica-Prutina, a member of the Central Election Commission, CEC, emphasized the importance of citizens knowing where they can report hate speech, especially with the upcoming election campaign.

“There is no place for hate speech or hate language in general,” said Bjelica-Prutina, who reminded the panel that hate speech is punishable by fines ranging from 3,000 to 30,000 marks (from 1,500 to 15,000 euros), as well as removal from the electoral list or revocation of their mandate.

She added that the CEC is cautious in imposing sanctions, as such decisions can be overturned by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country’s top court.

The British ambassador to Sarajevo, Julian Reilly, emphasised that politicians bear the greatest responsibility in the fight against hate speech and divisive narratives. 

“The existence of stable democratic processes is crucial for reducing hate speech and encouraging more civilized and constructive dialogue. This is the focus of our project with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, and we hope to help reduce the level of hate speech used in election campaigns,” Reilly said.

He noted that the campaign for the local elections begins on September 6, and that the outcome of these elections will have a direct impact on people’s lives.

“I urge all political actors to conduct their campaigns with dignity and not to use division or hatred for political gain. Candidates should focus on solutions and how to improve the lives of citizens,” Reilly said.

The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality’s Transportation Coordination Centre, UKOME, finally on Thursday approved a licence for 2,500 new taxis after years of delay. The new taxis can be only used by a digital app and drivers will not be able to choose their passengers.

“With the Application-Based Taxi System, we are moving to a modern, safe, accessible, auditable, transparent and technological taxi system,” Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP, said on Thursday.

Imamoglu has long argued that Istanbul’s current taxi fleet is insufficient, citing increasing complaints from locals and tourists.

But until now, his proposals to introduce new taxis were rejected by the UKOME, which is majority controlled by the central government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

However, despite the ongoing political rivalry, the government changed its position on Wednesday ahead of the vote at the UKOME on bringing in new vehicles.

“We will approve the Application-Based Taxi Transportation System in order to solve the taxi problem that is the subject of complaints of our citizens living in Istanbul,” Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on Wednesday.

Istanbul is Turkey’s largest city, with a population of 16 million. With students, daily commuters and tourists, the city’s population increases by millions more on a daily basis. However, the city has had only 18,395 taxis and the number has not changed since 1990.

According to the Istanbul Technical University’s research, Istanbul needs at least 43,000 taxis in total.

Istanbul Municipality aims to solve the chronic problem with a digital approach. The new taxis will be used via a digital application and integrated taxi stations. New taxis will also have a plate starting with T and will have a distinctive colour different to the current yellow-coloured taxis.

The taximeter will be integrated to the app and drivers cannot charge passengers extra. App-based taxi drivers will also not be able to refuse passengers depending on their final destination.

Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority, BTK, the national communications regulatory agency, blocked access to Instagram on Friday without stating the reason or duration of the ban.

“Instagram has been blocked by a decision dated 02.08.2024,” the BTK wrote on its website without giving further information.

The ban has come after the Turkish presidency’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, on Wednesday accused Instagram, which is owned by Meta, of censorship of content about Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination in Iran calling him a “martyr”.

“This is censorship, pure and simple,” Altun said on X, adding that Instagram had not cited any policy violations for its action.

However, there is no certainty that Instagram has been blocked over content removal on Haniyeh’s death, which led President Erdogan to declare a day of mourning on Friday.

The independent media platform Medyascope reported on Friday that Instagram had been blocked over its failure to remove illegal content on matters such as “the sexual abuse of a child”, “Insulting [Mustafa Kemal] Ataturk [founder of Turkey],” and items on “gambling and drugs”.

A BTK official anonymously told Medyascope that it had warned the social content provider to remove such content.

“There are certain periods of time [given] for this. If it [the offending material] is not resolved within this period, we have the right to block access,” the BTK official was quoted as saying.

Turkey has passed draconian laws and regulations that give the government greater control on digital platforms.

Under Erdogan, Turkey has previously blocked many social media platforms, including YouTube, Threads, EksiSozluk, Wikipedia, Twitter and TikTok. It has also imposed social media and broadcasting bans following disasters, terror attacks and social unrest.

Users in Turkey cannot access Instagram via web and mobile applications since the ban was imposed on Friday morning. Access is still possible via VPN services.

A woman holds a flag during a protest against the results of the presidential elections in Caracas,Venezuela, 29 July 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE/Henry Chirinos

North Macedonia says it has not received any evidence that hackers from the country were involved in meddling in Venezuela’s hotly disputed election.

Digital Society Minister Stefan Andonovski on Tuesday said that, apart from Venezuelan allegations, the “authoritarian regime” in Caracas had not produced any proof. “We are carefully monitoring the process,” Andonovski said.

“The ministry is not an investigative body but we will make sure that no one is accused in our country without having adequate evidence for it, and that we are not involved in internal political battles between an authoritarian regime that has existed for years in that country and the opposition there,” Andonovski added.

After presidential elections on Sunday, which the regime in Venezuela claimed to win, its Chief Prosecutor, Tarek William Saab, said on Monday that an inquiry had been launched against opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and several of her associates for alleged involvement in a hacking attack against the National Electoral Council’s data transmission system.

“The hacker attack came from North Macedonia,” Saab added, without showing any evidence, adding that this attack, allegedly coordinated by Venezuelan opposition leaders, had “the intention of manipulating data that was being received by the National Electoral Council.”

North Macedonia’s Foreign Ministry and interior Ministry have not reacted to the claims.

However, a former high-ranking Foreign Ministry official told BIRN on Tuesday under condition of anonymity that, “knowing the source of these allegations, I would not be surprised if our country is just being used by the Venezuelan authorities as convenient alibi for what is happening there.”

Apart from Cuba and Russia, most countries have greeted the official results of the Venezuelan election with scepticism, mainly because the authorities did not allow independent election observers.

According to the official results, President Nicolas Maduro won 51.2 per cent of the vote against the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia’s 44.2 per cent.

The opposition has disputed the results, accusing Maduro of fraud. Machado said they had evidence that their candidate won 70 per cent of the votes, not 44 per cent.

On Tuesday, protests and violent clashes erupted in many Venezuelan towns and cities. Meanwhile, neighboring Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic and Uruguay expressed serious doubt about the transparency of the election process and requested an urgent meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States, OAS, to safeguard “the will of the people”.

In response, Saab, a close ally to Maduro, downplayed these concerns as “attempts at interference and reckless statements made by a few Latin American governments.”

The EU and US also expressed strong doubt about the election results. The EU’s High Representative, Josep Borrell, on Monday said the results “have not been verified and cannot be considered as representative of the will of the people of Venezuela until all the official records from polling stations are published and verified.” He called on the Venezuelan Electoral Council to “exercise maximum transparency.”

North Macedonia is better known as a target of hackers, rather than an exporter. However, in 2016, spammers from the little North Macedonian town of Veles gained cash and notoriety for promoting fake news about Donald Trump on social networks.

Devin Nunes, Chris Pavlovski and Howard Lutnick met North Macedonia’s PM, Hristijan Mickoski on Monday in Skopje. Photo: North Macedonia’s Government 

North Macedonia’s new conservative Prime Minister, Hristijan Mickoski, said after meeting some of US Republican contender Donald Trump’s close business associates that his government is interested in cooperation with them.

“If we manage to find common interests, why not?” Mickoski told local TV station Telma on Monday, when asked about whether cooperation and possible investments are in sight.

Earlier that day in Skopje he met Chris Pavlovski, CEO of Rumble corporation, Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald finance corporation and Devin Nunes, former California congressman and current CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group.

“For now, I would not reveal this type of details [of cooperation] but I am pleased I had these people today. They will stay here for the next few days and will talk to government teams, divided into two sections. The first is the economic part, and the second is the digitalization and the digital transformation,” Mickoski said.

The meeting, according to an earlier press release, focused on opportunities for cooperation on digital reforms that the country needs to implement to improve services to the citizens, “focusing on digital freedom and transformation of Macedonian society”.

Several opportunities for economic cooperation in various sectors were also discussed, the government press release added.

Mickoski, who came to power after May general elections, said the visit was organised by Chris Pavlovski, a Canadian technology entrepreneur of Macedonian descent. His bio notes extensive experience in online marketing and advertising space. His company, Rumble, is also known for hosting Truth Social, a right-wing social media platform popular among Trump supporters.

“We create technologies that are immune to cancel culture,” the company states on its website, adding: “Join us. We are on a mission to protect a free and open internet.”

Mickoski’s VMRO DPMNE party was formerly headed by the now fugitive exPM Nikola Gruevski who ruled the country for a decade from 2006 to 2016. His government tightened its grip on the local media, among other things by pouring in millions iinto favoured media through government advertisements.

Photo illustration: Kanchanara on Unsplash

Social media users in North Macedonia are being targeted by fake articles impersonating legitimate websites, in an attempt to lure them into a cryptocurrency trading scheme. BIRN’s own Reporting Democracy is among the websites being impersonated by the scammers.

Police in North Macedonia had already issued a warning for users to be careful of such suspicious content, saying such schemes impersonating legitimate websites and displaying clickbait content have been active for at least the past two weeks.

In the case of BIRN’s Reporting Democracy, the targeted users are being encouraged to click on a fake website through a paid ad on Facebook. The fake website is using the same logo and branding as the original site, and contains a made-up interview with the famous Macedonian football player, Goran Pandev.

The catchy headline reads: “The Central Bank of Macedonia Sues Goran Pandev for His Statements on Live Television”.

The fake content then relates how Reporting Democracy was able to obtain a now-deleted live video interview with the football star, in which Pandev, not knowing that he is being recorded, slips out about how he got rich fast by trading cryptocurrency.

The fake article soon starts promoting crypto-trading sites that allegedly made the football player rich and led to the central bank going after him.

Through these fake web pages, users are directed to three alleged platforms for cryptocurrency trading: Nearest Edge, Bitapp24 and Immediate codex.

After opening the website with the alleged trading platform, users are directed to a login that requires the entry of personal data such as name, email and phone number, after which users receive information that “the order” has been placed.

Immediately after that, the sites ask for data from the user’s bank card and the user is asked to buy crypto-currency, with a note written in a smaller font notifying them that they accept the risk of trading.

Other websites and popular entertainment sites in North Macedonia have also been recently impersonated by the same scheme.

North Macedonia’s Police department for computer crime last week issued a warning to internet users, saying this scam has been going on for at least the past two weeks in North Macedonia.

However, the police said this is part of a wider scheme targeting European audiences, and that the content of these sponsored ads is simply being adjusted for local country audiences by misappropriating the names of local celebrities and following a similar pattern.

“These posts most often say ‘deleted interviews because the central bank doesn’t want you to know this secret’, mentioning celebrities from the country, even posting their photos to gain legitimacy. They note that you can acquire cryptocurrencies fast, and that all you need to do is visit the offered URL,” the police said in a statement.

“This link leads to a cryptocurrency trading platform, but there are no official details regarding the registration of the company, no information on jurisdiction, or how to get in touch with the legal entity to which you would entrust your money,” the police said.

But the same algorithm, according to experts, is not precise, especially when dealing with small markets like one in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

A senior assistant at the department of information sciences at Sarajevo’s Faculty of Philosophy, Fedja Kulenovic, said the reason for the content removal is “most probably use of the word ‘genocide’ in social media posts or inside the articles. 

“Since they have automatised systems for content removal, my educated guess is that these cases were connected to the questions of Palestine and Israel,” Kulenovic told BIRN. 

Meta did not reply to BIRN’s query by the time of publication. 

The article deleted by Facebook containing only service information. Photo: Screenshot. 

‘We don’t know what was removed’

Posting content that is deemed to violate Facebook’s rules can have far-reaching consequences for small media outlets, which rely on the platform’s sheer scale to reach an audience and attract advertisers. 

Repeated occurrences of content being flagged as false or misleading can result in a media’s visibility being reduced, or it being locked out altogether.

Sabina Mesic, editor at Tuzlarije news site, from the northern Bosnian city of Tuzla, said Facebook only sends a notification that a post has been removed from their Facebook page, without notifying them what post exactly. 

“In the beginning, we had the possibility of saying if we agreed with their decision, but now we only get a notification that the post was removed and we don’t know what was actually removed,” Mesic told BIRN. 

Several other outlets had a similar experience while reporting on July 11, the annual date of the commemoration of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide victims, held in the eastern Bosnian town. 

Journalists from NEON TV from the town of Kalesija also reported that the content on one of their pages was removed for violating Facebook’s community rules. 

“We shared an article containing service information on weather, traffic and planned construction works, including the announcement of the commemoration in Srebrenica,” Jasmin Pasalic, a journalist with NEON TV, told BIRN. 

The TV station runs two separate Facebook pages, but the same article, which had a cover photo of the “Flower of Srebrenica”, was removed from only one of them. “The article stayed on another page without any issue, and we can’t explain why,” Pasalic added. 

Both Pasalic and Mesic told BIRN that this was not the first time that content was removed from their pages, without any explanation, or logical reasons why. 

“We had an article about the head of Bosnia’s football selection and that article was removed for breaking the rules,” Pasalic told BIRN. “The problem is that when you receive the warnings a few times, there is a possibility that you can be locked out from your page, or the same can be removed,” Mesic said. 

As BIRN previously reported, small media outlets face significant risks when posting content that violates Facebook’s rules, leading to reduced visibility or account lockouts. Facebook’s algorithm, a closely guarded secret, determines content reach through a relevancy score based on numerous signals. Content moderation inconsistencies, especially in Bosnia, exacerbate these challenges, highlighting the need for local understanding and ethical journalism.

Another BIRN report also showed that Facebook’s content moderation faces significant challenges in the Balkans. Despite using a mix of artificial intelligence and human review, Facebook’s tools often fail to accurately assess content in local languages like Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin, and Macedonian. While the platform proactively detects and removes a substantial amount of hate speech globally, the specific nuances and context of Balkan languages and cultural issues are frequently overlooked.

This leads to inconsistent moderation, where harmful content sometimes remains online, and benign content is mistakenly removed. The lack of transparency in Facebook’s moderation processes exacerbates these issues, leaving users uncertain about rule enforcement.

Silencing voices from Palestine

Relatives say their final goodbyes to Srebrenica victims. Photo: BIRN.

In its report from December last year, watchdog organisation Human Rights Watch, HRW, warned that Meta’s “policies and practices have been silencing voices in support of Palestine and Palestinian human rights on Instagram and Facebook”. 

From October and November 2023 alone, Human Rights Watch documented over “1,050 takedowns and other suppression of content on Instagram and Facebook that had been posted by Palestinians and their supporters, including about human rights abuses”. It also noted increased censorship of social media since October 7. 

Kulenovic, who often works with media in the cases of social media censorship, has noticed the same increase in Bosnia, as a consequence of imprecise algorithms.

The problem with such an approach, with bots being in charge of content moderation, is that “they can tell content, but not context”, he said. 

“They [algorithms] can be very useful in moderating content, but when they are not written well such algorithms remove content even when it is related to factually proven things, such as the genocide in Srebrenica,” Kulenovic said. 

An LGBTI+ rights activist and member of the Workers’ Party of Turkey, TIP, Iris Mozalar, was arrested on Thursday over her social media posts condemning violent incidents against refugees in past weeks.

“While those who burned the homes of small children and wanted to carry out massacres were released, I was arrested because I criticized this,” Mozalar told Yesil Gazete before she was arrested on court orders for “inciting hatred and animosity among the public”.

In her social media posts, Mozalar opposed recent attacks on refugees and defended everyone’s right to live “happily and equally”.

Turkey has seen violent anti-migrant and anti-refugee protests in recent weeks following an alleged child abuse case in Kayseri province that involved Syrian refugees. Angry protesters raided shops owned by Syrian refugees and set fire to several vehicles in the city.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the violence as “vandalism”.

Turkey’s new generation left-wing TIP and LGBTI+ groups condemned the arrest of Mozalar. “Our comrade Iris has been arrested by the court for standing up against the attacks on refugees. We will continue our struggle until peace and brotherhood prevail in our country instead of hate and hostility,”.TIP’s LGBTI+ Bureau said in a written statement on Thursday.

The Istanbul LGBTI+ Pride Week Committee also demanded Mozalar’s immediate release.

“Our friend Mozalar was detained from her home last night over a tweet, held overnight, and brought before a judge this morning with a request for arrest. Freedom of expression cannot be suppressed. We demand her immediate release,”it said in a statement on Thursday.

The Socialists’ Women’s Assemblies said that Mozalar was not the one inciting hatred and animosity among the public. “It is not our solidarity that leads ‘the people to hatred and hostility’ but the male-dominated hate policies towards refugees,” they said on X on Thursday.

LGBTI+ groups and TIP plan a protest on Friday evening in Istanbul near Sureyya Opera House against Mozalar’s arrest.

Kosovo’s Independent Media Commission building. Photo: BIRN

Kosovo’s parliament on Thursday adopted a controversial law on the Independent Media Commission, IMC, ignoring international calls for stricter safeguards.

Under the terms of the new law, among others, online media will be subject to state licensing and control by the IMC. Online media outlets will be forced to register in the Online Media Register, which will be managed by the IMC. They will also now be subject to a regime of sanctions, including potential fines of up to €40,000.

Fifty-nine MPs from ruling coalition voted in favour of the law and two abstained while all opposition MPs vacated the chamber before the law was put up for vote in an attempt to challenge the quorum. After the vote, the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo PDK announced it will take the law to the Constitutional Court for review.

After the vote, the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, which has supported the IMC since its establishment in 2005, said that some attempts had been made to revise certain articles to achieve legal clarity and introduce procedural safeguards, but the law still lacks effective self-regulation mechanisms.

“The extension of the IMC’s jurisdiction to social media, coupled with the absence of clear criteria for blocking harmful content, raises concerns about proportionality and has potential implications for freedom of expression,” the OSCE said.

It urged that the law be the “subject of a comprehensive review, during which the views of both Kosovo and international experts should be sought”.

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

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo, AJK, also criticized the new law, calling it as “a blow to media freedom and an attempt to discipline and control them”.

“The ruling [Vetevendosje] party has not taken into consideration civil society’s and media remarks and has disregarded the CoE expert who has concluded that most of the law does not meet European standards,” AJK said.

On June 26, the European Union Office in Kosovo warned that the draft law does not reflect the majority of the recommendations included in a legal opinion prepared by the Council of Europe.

These included sensitive issues such as the powers and financing of the Independent Media Commission, the election procedures and terms of service for its members, and the proportionality of sanctions.

“Despite the introduction of some substantial changes in the field of media regulation, the current draft requires further revisions to enhance legal clarity, proportionality, and further compliance with EU and Council of Europe standards,” the EU Office said.

In this year’s Reporters Without Border’s index, Kosovo dropped 19 places from last year to 75th place, reflecting attacks on journalists from political groups and even physical attacks in the field.