Tag: digital rights

Albania Blames ‘Massive Cyber Attack’ as Govt Servers go Down

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Albania has come under a “massive cybernetic attack”, the government announced on Monday, which pro-government media blamed on Russia.

The main servers of the National Agency for Information Society, which handles many services, were all down on Monday after being hit on Sunday by “an attack from abroad”.

“Albania is under a massive cybernetic attack that has never happened before. This criminal cyber-attack was synchronized… from outside Albania,” the Council of Ministers said in a press release.

“In order to not allow this attack to damage our information system, the National Agency of Information Society had temporarily shut down online services and other government websites,” it added.

The National Agency for Information Society, AKSHI, is a controversial institution, which some accuse of  misusing citizens’ personal data for political purposes. It has been also suspected of funneling millions of euros to progovernment media through procurements of various services.

The government of Prime Minister Edi Rama closed desk services for the population lately and ordered mandatory use of its online services for everything from enrolling in school to obtaining an ISBN number for a new book at the National Library.

However, several important services, such as online tax filing, are still working, as they use separate servers.

Sali Berisha, a former PM and opposition leader, blamed the ineptitude of the government rather than Russia for the meltdown, pointing out that the government had concentrated too many services in the AKSHI.

“How did it it happen that the government ordered almost all important services to go through this website?’ he asked. “How can such initiatives be undertaken while no professional policing against cyber crime is yet in place?” he added.

EU Urged to Withdraw Child Abuse Law amid Privacy Concerns

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), together with 72 NGOs and professional bodies, on Wednesday sent an open letter to the European Commission demanding it withdraw proposed child abuse legislation and replace it with a provision that secures privacy, security and free expression for all.

The European Commission published on May 11 new draft legislation, called the CSA Regulation, that aims to prevent and combat child sexual abuse. Under the proposal, private message services (like WhatsApp and Signal), web-based emails, social media platforms, app stores, image hosting providers and others would be liable for obligations to scan, filter and/or block content – including encrypted messages.

“When you fundamentally undermine how the internet works, you make it less safe for everyone. If passed, this law will turn the internet into a space that is dangerous for everyone’s privacy, security, and free expression. This includes the very children that the legislation aims to protect,” the 73 civil society and professional groups wrote in the open letter to the EU Commission.

The CSA Regulation would cause severe harm in a wide variety of ways, the groups argued.

The new regulation would force private technology companies to put communications and materials that citizens share under surveillance, which would have a direct impact on respect for the privacy of every citizen, while also leading to a restriction of freedom of expression in digital communications, these groups argued.

“The provisions of the proposed legislation for the restriction and suppression of child exploitation material on the internet, while dealing with such an important issue, fail to safeguard the protection of all of us in the digital space and put the privacy of our communications in immediate danger,” Homo Digitalis, a Greek digital rights NGO that co-signed the open letter, told BIRN.

Journalists and human rights activists would see their communications monitored under the new law, which the EFJ argues “could jeopardise the fundamental protection of journalistic sources.”

“This will put in immediate danger not only the continuation of their important work, but even their personal safety, in cases of authoritarian regimes. We are already seeing important facts coming to light that show that journalists are being monitored illegally, even in Greece. Imagine the direct impact that the imposition of this legislation will have on the entire journalistic field, on human rights lawyers, etc. It will give the tools to authoritarian governments to put – legally now – any control over the internet,” said Homo Digitalis.

In Greece, in November last year, the Greek journalist and BIRN contributor Stavros Malihoudis, as well as human rights activists found themselves the targets of surveillance by the country’s National Intelligence Service. Recently, the Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis, a financial editor for CNN Greece and a regular contributor to local and international outlets including the Financial Times and CNBC, found that his mobile phone had been surveilled by Predator spyware.

Turkey’s Planned Internet Law to Criminalise ‘Spreading Misinformation’

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A new set of laws, which includes 40 articles, was represented to Turkey’s parliament on Thursday, aiming to increase government control over the internet, media and social media.

The law was prepared by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP and its far-right partner, the Nationalist Movement Party, MHP.

The new law, which is expected to pass soon, for the first time defines the crime of “spreading misinformation on purpose”.

It criminalises “a person who publicly disseminates false information regarding internal and external security, public order and the general health of the country, in a way that is suitable for disturbing the public peace, simply for the purpose of creating anxiety, fear or panic among the people”, the draft law explains.

According to the proposed law, persons who spread misinformation may be jailed for one to three years. If the court decides that the person spread misinformation as part of an illegal organisation, the jail sentence will be increased by 50 per cent.

Journalists may also be charged under this new law if they use anonymous sources for hiding the identity of the person who spreads the misinformation.

The draft law was condemned by experts and journalists’ unions.

Journalists unions in a written statement on Friday, including the Journalists’ Union of Turkey, TGS, the Journalists’ Association and the International Press Institute’s Turkey Committee, said that, “concerned that it may lead to one of the most severe censorship and self-censorship mechanisms in the history of the republic, we call for the immediate withdrawal of this bill, which seems to have been designed to increase the pressure on journalism, not ‘fight against disinformation”.

The new law also allows internet media to register as periodical media publications. This will allow internet media to enjoy some of the benefits of traditional media, such as advertising and press cards, but brings more government control.

Internet media will be required to remove “false” content and must archive their publications, and the government may block access to their websites more easily.

“On the request of the ministries, the President [of the Information and Communication Technologies Authority] may decide to remove the content and/or block access to be fulfilled within four hours regarding broadcasts on the internet,” the new law said, citing national security and public order.

It also creates new regulations on official press cards, after Turkey’s Council of State, the highest administrative legal authority in the country, cancelled the previous law in April, 2021, citing risks to press freedom.

The regulations created by the Communications Directorate, which is under the control of the presidency, allowed the government to cancel the press cards of journalists seen as unfriendly to the authorities, critics claimed.

Since they were introduced, a large number of independent journalists have had their press cards cancelled or their applications for renewal denied.

However, the new law brings little change, beyond creating a new board to decide on press cards. The Press Card Commission will have nine members, which will include government officials, academics and journalists’ unions but five members will come from the Communications Directorate, holding a decision-making majority.

Election Hostilities Shake Serbia and Hungary

Posted on 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.

Wave of Cyber Crimes, Political Clashes, Buffets Region

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Early February’s digital violations suggested that some of them were the result of the reluctance or inability of governments to cope with an increase in cyber-attacks and online frauds.

In Hungary, political clashes continued in the online environment ahead of spring’s general elections; in Romanian, a row in parliament between the energy minister and a far-right leader Simion resulted in both a spike in online tensions and a controversial amendment to parliament’s rules.

New computer frauds and hacker attacks were recorded in North Macedonia, Croatia and Serbia, where the responses of the authorities remain far from satisfactory. Ethnic and political-related death threats marred Bosnia’s digital environment.

Political contest haunts Hungary ahead of election

With parliamentary elections looming in Hungary, the party campaigns are becoming a battlefield in which the different options continue to attack each other.

On February 12, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán delivered his annual “state of the nation” speech, which he used to attack his Fidesz party’s political rivals. If the left wins the next elections, he claimed, “taxes and debt will be sky high, and we will have a crumbling economy: unemployment, austerity measures, mountains of debts, IMF: No money.”

Former socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany addresses demonstrators protesting against the policies of the Hungarian government in a street overlooking the Parliament building in Budapest, Hungary, 28 September 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE/ZOLTAN MATHE 

In the first case recorded on February 9, Péter Márki-Zay, leader of Hungary’s joint opposition in the election and founder of the Everybody’s Hungary movement, on Facebook accused Fidesz ministers, including the Prime Minister, of involvement in an ongoing corruption case. The prosecutor’s office has since made it clear that the accusation had no basis in fact.

Pro-government media are meanwhile involved in political attacks and disinformation aimed at discrediting Fidesz’s opponents.

On February 13, the pro-government media launched a campaign against Ferenc Gyurcsány, president of the liberal Democratic Coalition Party, claiming he did not know the name of his own party’s candidate at an election event. To support this claim, they published a manipulated video in which Gyurcsány appeared not to know the candidate’s last name, saying: “Dr Oláh Somebody, the candidate for this constituency.” Gyurcsány had been targeted in a further case of disinformation led by pro-government media outlets Origo and Borsonline. On February 15, he won a lawsuit against an article published by the two media that claimed he was drunk at a party event.

North Macedonia still vulnerable to hacker attacks

Computer frauds and other cyberattacks jeopardized the integrity of a number of North Macedonian state websites in early February.

Despite government pledges to increase the security of the IT systems of institutional websites, weak cybercrime prevention systems remain a challenge. Lack of adequate training of IT personnel to prevent hacking attacks and raise awareness of their effects is another issue.

In a case recorded on February 4, hackers calling themselves the “Powerful Greek Army” boasted that they had hacked the Ministry of Education. The group released footage that appeared to be from the ministry’s own video cameras. However, after confirming the hacker attack, the ministry said the video footage published on Twitter by the hacker group was fake.

Days later, on February 9, scammers were sending out mass phishing emails in the name of North Macedonian Post. Several citizens reported receiving suspect messages on behalf of the Post Office, asking them to make payments through a fake website. The Post Office warned people not to open the links.

Romanian parliament clash spurs online tensions and controversial rule change

Shortly before the Romanian parliament’s Chamber of Deputies on February 9 rejected a motion of no confidence in Energy Minister Virgil Popescu, parliament was the scene of an ugly confrontation between George Simion, leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians, AUR, and the minister.

Simion first approached the minister with threatening tones, yelling in his face: “You’re a thief.” The chairman of the meeting, Daniel Suciu, member of the Social Democratic Party PSD, suspended the session, “This is the first time in the history of the Romanian parliament that a minister has been physically assaulted while giving a speech,” he said.

Incident desfasurat in timpul sedintei ocazionate de citirea motiunii simple de cenzura impotriva ministrului energiei, in plenul Parlamentului Romaniei, 7 februarie 2022. Photo: Inquam Photos / Ilona Andrei

The digital environment was shaken by this event. In a case recorded on February 8, Energy Minister Popescu complained that he and his family were now being threatened on Facebook by the far-right party’s supporters. “Since this incident happened, I have been targeted by an avalanche of insults and threats on my personal Facebook account. These threats appeared even under pictures of my children. They went too far this time. Some of the accounts are fake, and the whole action seems organised,” he said.

The aftermath of the political clash resulted in a further episode that could have worrying implications for freedom of expression.

On February 9, the government proposed amendments to the rules of the chamber, which would limit MPs’ rights to livestream and video-record events inside parliament. Six NGOs criticized the change. “The ban on displaying banners in the parliament, as well as the ban on recording and broadcasting live is, in our view, a restriction on freedom of expression, which is a fundamental right, all the more protected when it comes to political debate,” they warned.

Phishing scams and online intimidation of journalists in Serbia

In Serbia, the first two weeks of February saw several phishing cases and more digital violations targeting journalists.

Serbia’s digital environment remains “hostile territory” for independent journalists and media outlets and attempts to discredit and discourage the free media are a daily reality.

Workers decorate with Christmas lights the head office of Raiffeisen Bank in Pristina, Kosovo, 16 December 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMA

On February 1, the Serbian branch of Raiffeisen Bank warned its clients that requests sent to customers to reactivate their mobile banking apps via email were fraudulent. The bank advised its clients not to follow such instructions. Two days later, Serbian Post informed citizens that fraudulent messages were being sent on its behalf via SMS and WhatsApp, asking people to make payments to pick up shipments. It advised people not to open these fake links or enter personal data.

Nedim Sejdinović, a journalist known for his anti-government editorials and author of various reports on social issues, reported to the country’s Cybercrime Prosecution Office that he had received threats and other insults via Facebook Messenger on February 11. One comment read: “Listen Turk [an abusive term for Muslim]… I will take care of you”.

Following a November 4 case, where Aleksandar Šapić, vice president of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, sued Nenad Kulačin and Marko Vidojković, hosts of the podcast “Dobar, loš, zao” (“The Good, The Bad, The Ugly”) for defamation, the politician again sued the two journalists on February 13, demanding more than a million Serbian dinars in compensation for the contents of their programme.

Ethnic Death Threats in Bosnia and Herzegovina 

In Bosnia, where ethnic tensions are endemic to the social fabric and political system, new ethnic-political-related death threats marred Bosnia’s digital environment.

Ćamil Duraković, former mayor of Srebrenica, received death threats after guesting on a television program where he confronted a Republika Srpska deputy, Nebojsa Vukanovic. One message read: “Because of last night’s spitting on Serbs in the [TV] show, I can only tell you, ‘Long live Ratko Mladic’ and it’s a pity they missed you” – “they” meaning the Bosnian forces under General Mladic who killed 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995.

Another case involved the vice president of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the larger of Bosnia’s two entities, Milan Dunović. He reported receiving death threats from some individuals who had threatened to “cut off his head”.

“When individuals dare to threaten public figures, who are under the protection of the police, the question is what citizens can expect. Of course, I reported all threats that I consider a direct threat to the safety of me and my family to the authorities, but such threats can only be stopped by stopping policies of hatred and invoking conflict,” he said.

Computer frauds and COVID disinformation Spread in Croatia

Croatia recorded several cases of computer fraud and other cases of disinformation linked to the COVID pandemic in early February,

Following the pandemic, cyber frauds have increased in Croatia and, although Croatia has joined the EU Cybersecurity Regulation, it appears that its cybersecurity is not yet efficient. A study suggests that Croatia has yet to offer an adequate answer to the increase in cyber-threats.

A bitcoin sign is placed in front of a crypto exchange office in Pristina, Kosovo, 10 January 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ 

On February 9, Croatian telecommunications operator A1 was subjected to a hacker attack that compromised around 10 per cent of A1’s user data. The hacker demanded a $500,000 ransom or threatened to sell the data on the dark web. One day earlier, a Croatian company became a victim of internet fraud following the interception of its email exchange with a business partner. The company then received an email with details of a fake bank account, into which it deposited funds, losing a couple of thousand kuna. A massive cryptocurrency fraud was also discovered between September 2021 and November 2021, which targeted thousands of citizens.

Two cases linked to COVID disinformation were also recorded. In the first, on February 3, false information about the cause of the recent death of Valerij Jurešić, who headed the Department of Culture, Sports and Technical Culture in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, spread via social media and online media.

This claimed that his death by heart attack was linked to the COVID-19 vaccine. However, Jurešić’s daughter clarified that her father had been suffering from cancer, adding that anti-cancer drugs probably induced his heart attack.

On the same day, a case was recorded of a scientist who became a victim of hate speech and death threats online after he warned about the dangers of COVID-19.

North Macedonia Ministry Confirms New Hacking Attack

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

North Macedonia’s Education Ministry on Sunday said it had been a target of a hacking attack over the past few days, but said video footage published on the Twitter account of a hacker group called “Powerful Greek Army”, as proof of the hacking, was fake.

The video footage, that seems to be taken from a camera surveillance system, “was not taken by or within the ministry because the ministry does not have such a system”, it said.

The ministry did not yet disclose whether it suffered damage from the attack, or whether any documentation had been lost or hijacked.

“Powerful Greek Army” published the short video on Twitter on Friday last week, writing that it had hacked the Education Ministry of the neighbouring country. “We have access even in their camera systems, we watch you 24/7, we have eyes everywhere, Skopje,” the group twitted.

This post caught attention in North Macedonia over the weekend.

It was far an isolated incident in the country. After several attacks on state institutions over the past few years, experts have warned that the country’s IT system is particularly vulnerable to cyber-crime, and is in dire need of security improvements.

The Greek hacking group behind ther latest post is also not unknown to the public in North Macedonia.

In May 2020, “Powerfull Greek Army” leaked dozens of email addresses and passwords from staffers in North Macedonia’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, as well as from the municipality of Strumica – and bragged about its exploits on Twitter.

Djokovic Saga, Far-Right Rhetoric and Ethnic Bias Disrupt Online World

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Online violations recorded at the end of January show, among other things, that divisive political propaganda and domestic ethnic tensions are having a strong impact on online behavior.

In North Macedonia, internal tensions with the country’s Bulgarian and Albanian communities did not subside and remain one of the main challenges for the new political rulers; the aftermath of the apparently settled Rio Tinto issue and tennis star Djokovic’s Australian Open saga still dominate Serbia’s online environment.

Political clashes in Hungary ahead of the 2022 parliamentary elections continue to intensify, while far-right nationalist propaganda is escalating in Romania. In Bosnia, a banned Republika Srpska holiday and online misogyny were the cause of several online breaches

Ethnic-based violations agitate North Macedonia

In North Macedonia, where a way out of the long-running political crisis still seems to be far off, ethnic and national divisions remain one of the main challenges that the new authorities face in the short run.

The Bulgarian minority there endures much online hate speech due to persistent tensions between the two countries. In this context, the March 2021 attack on North Macedonia’s Eurovision contestant, Vasil Garvalniev, over his dual citizenship, was prescient.

Ethnic tensions also involve the country’s big Albanian minority. Recently, Elida Zylbeari, ethnic Albanian editor-in-chief of the North Macedonian-based Portalb.mk, said he experienced regular discrimination as a member of this ethnic minority. “Being an Albanian journalist in North Macedonia is harder than being a Macedonian journalist,” he remarked.

Ethnic Albanians march in protest following a court decision in Skopje, North Macedonia, 29 January 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI 

In a case recorded on January 16, an anonymous Twitter user spread false claims about the contents of the North Macedonia dictionary, accusing its editors and curators of allowing words and phrases deemed offensive to Macedonians, while throwing out words seen as offensive towards ethnic Albanian and Roma people. The tweet went viral and sparked an intense debate online.

In a separate Facebook case, on January 24, administrators of a Facebook group, called “I want to tell the latest”, misused the logo of a well-known North Macedonian online media outlet SDK to post pro-Bulgarian and anti-Macedonian rhetoric. SDK suffered similar abuse from another Facebook group in 2018, ahead of the 2018 referendum on EU and NATO membership.

Rio Tinto and Djokovic saga stir Serbia’s online environment

In response to large-scale protests that took place across Serbia, where thousands in Belgrade and elsewhere blocked major transport networks in protest against two massive investment projects involving foreign mining companies, the Serbian government revoked mining giant Rio Tinto’s exploration licences.

At a press conference on January 20, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić insisted that the decision to end Rio Tinto operations in Serbia was final. “We have fulfilled all the demands of the environmental protests and put an end to Rio Tinto in Serbia. With this, as far as the Jadar project and Rio Tinto are concerned, everything is over,” Brnabić told journalists.

But the Rio Tinto issue has not completely disappeared. Many environmental activists still do not trust the government’s promise to scrap the agreement with the mining giant. Brnabic “did not say what we will do with the damage and with the wells that are leaking, she did not say whether she will ban research into lithium and boron. She did not tell us … who from her government persistently pushed the project,” the Association of Environmental Organizations of Serbia, SEOS, said on Twitter.

The Rio Tinto “question”, in fact, still causes various offline and online tensions. On January 22, Marinika Tepić and Dragan Đilas, from the opposition Freedom and Justice Party, received death threats on Twitter in reply to Tepić’s tweet about a Rio Tinto press release. In her tweet, Tepić revealed that the announcement was sent from the email address of the Serbian government, writing also about the government’s seeming lack of transparency on the matter. In response to Tepić’s tweet, a Twitter account most likely bearing a false name threatened the politician, saying she and her children “deserve a bullet”.

Novak Djokovic of Serbia reacts during his men’s singles fourth round match against Milos Raonic of Canada at the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia, 14 February 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/DEAN LEWINS

Another viral topic still dominating Serbia’s online environment was tennis star Novak Djokovic and his Australian saga. Deported by the Australian authorities after losing a gruelling visa battle ahead of the Australian Open, he has been the subject of several incidents of online misinformation and fake news.

On January 13, a few Serbian online media outlets presented satirical stories linked to the case as news, significantly spreading fake news on the web. The satirical portal Zicer, for example, spread the story of a Serbian allegedly roasting a kangaroo in Australia in support of the tennis player with the headline: “Serbs from Melbourne roasted kangaroos on a spit in protest for Novak!” The article stated the roasted kangaroo had been brought in front of the hotel where Djokovic was staying to express solidarity with him.

In a similar manner, online media reported as news an article from the Australian satirical news website Double Bay Today, DBT. An alleged survey was published in the article, claiming that more Australians supported the deportation of the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison than Djokovic. The text said that 52 per cent of the 5,600 voters favoured Morrison’s deportation, but that the Australian Prime Minister did not want to comment on the results of the poll.

Hungary continues to experience mounting tensions ahead of the April 3 general elections

Hungary is fast approaching the parliamentary elections on April 3, 2022, and the political clashes between rivals do not subside, on the contrary, they intensify considerably as the electoral period approaches.

News of partisan attacks, political scandals, unfounded accusations are an everyday occurrence, leaving Hungarian citizens at the mercy of conflicting news circulating on the web. The latest news concerns an alleged loan of 10.6 million euros that a Hungarian bank would have given to Marine le Pen, French far-right leader, to finance her campaign ahead of the first round of the 2022 French presidential election.

Independent MP Timea Szabo (C), Co-Chairperson of the oppositional Dialogue party unfolds a long sheet of paper containing projects of civic organizations supported by the Norwegian Fund as legislators vote on a draft concerning the transparency of organizations receiving funding from abroad during a session of the Parliament in Budapest, Hungary, 13 June 2017. Photo: EPA/ATTILA KOVACS

In a case, occurred last January 31, Gábor Jézsó, a Catholic theologian and opposition candidate in the 6th district of Szerencs-Tiszaújváros in Borsod, reported in a video posted on Facebook that he had received a death threat via e-mail. The email contained a photo of a bloody knife and the caption “I will stab you”. Jézsó filed a complaint to the local police against an unknown perpetrator for the incident.

Just days earlier, on January 20, Tímea Szabó, an MP and co-chair of the opposition Dialogue for Hungary Party, Párbeszéd, launched an attack on the reputation of a political rival in a case of disinformation aimed to spread falsehoods and unverified information.  In particular, the politician alleged in a post on Facebook that Antal Rogán, a Cabinet Office minister from the ruling Fidesz party, could be the unnamed man known only by the initial ‘R’ in the so-called Völner-Schadl corruption case. In a press conference, opposition members claimed that Rogán was involved in “the highest level of corruption case in the political history of Hungary” since its democratic transition in 1989-90, “which started with the exposure of the bailiff mafia and the deputy justice minister, and who knows where it will end.”

Episodes of Covid-19 misinformation and the massive circulation of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories also continue to populate the Hungarian digital environment.

Ákos Kovács, a popular Hungarian pop-rock singer and songwriter, alluding to a well-known conspiracy theory, claimed in a video interview, released on January 23, that the coronavirus was “cooked in China and financed with American money”. In a related case of disinformation about a Covid-19 news, a newspaper article started spreading the fake news on Facebook claiming that the Austrian city of Linz was recruiting “manhunters” to capture people who refuse to be vaccinated despite the country’s mandatory vaccination. The article, which showed a police officer snatching a man, quickly went viral and was shared more than 1,200 times on Facebook.

Far-right rhetoric and computer frauds alarm the Romanian online landscape

In recent days, Romania has seen an alarming crescendo of popular and nationalist rhetoric in the public sphere. The Alliance for the Union of Romanians Party, the ultranationalist right-wing party active in both Romania and Moldova, has become the protagonist of numerous controversial episodes, arousing political tensions and ethnic-racial hatred.


Romanian politician George Simion (R), the leader of the extremist party Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), delivers a speech during a protest held in front of Health Ministry headquarters in Bucharest, Romania, 13 April 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

First, they organized a protest in front of the Romanian parliament against the possible introduction of the mandatory COVID vaccination passes, and then recently criticized the teaching of Holocaust and sex education in schools. Madalin Necsutu suggests that it is a worrying trend that “the right-wing AUR party in Romania sees anti-Semitism as a way to pick up new voters”.

In a worrying incident, which occurred last January 26, the AUR party started a public campaign on Facebook against Romanian media that it deemed hostile. AUR published a “blacklist” of the Romanian press on its official Facebook page. “AUR is trying to intimidate those journalists who dare to cover in an honest way the actions, intentions and positions of this party”, the chief editor of G4 Media, Cristian Pantazi said. Creating a blacklist in Romania is nothing new as politicians like Corneliu Vadim Tudor, Traian Băsescu, Liviu Dragnea and Florin Cîțu have all followed a similar practice in the recent past.

Phishing scams and computer frauds are omnipresent in Romania’s digital environment. At the same time, and as already pointed out by our latest annual report on digital rights, “Online Intimidation: Controlling Narrative in the Balkans“, Romania also stands out as the country with the highest number of cases (20) involving breaches of citizen data recorded in the last year.

In a first incident, recorded on January 20, the National Company for Road Infrastructure warns that numerous drivers are being targeted by phishing emails, after their email addresses were stolen from the Vignette Website. It is not clear when the original attack happened and how the unknown hackers obtained the users’ email addresses. Meanwhile, it was also revealed on January 26 that the attackers behind the FluBot trojan, which spread globally last year, targeted predominantly Romanian users between January 15 and 18, according to a report released by Bitdefender cybersecurity experts.

Republika Srpska’s holiday and online misogyny cause hostilities in Bosnia

The aftermath of the banned national holiday day in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, continue to characterize some violations that occurred in the second half of January in the Bosnian digital environment.

On January 14, a video of the song ‘Jedina Srpska’, performed by the Belgrade Trade Union and Danica Crnogorcevic, a singer of folklore and spiritual music from Montenegro, has been removed from YouTube. The video, which was released to coincide with the celebration of Republika Srpska Day, was removed after several YouTube users complained that it incited ethnic hatred, according to the singer.

Misogynists’ episodes and attacks on activists also continue to occur very frequently in Bosnia. Environmental activists, in particular, across Bosnia face growing threats, pressures and attacks from both citizens and public institutions as evidenced by the case of Mostar, where the municipal court has issued a decision imposing a sentence on all activists active in the region.

An incident, recorded on January 20, involved the public debate on small hydroelectric power plants, which was supposed to provide solutions and ideas for a better environment in Mostar, which was marked by an accident and took place in the Mostar municipality. One of the owners of a small hydroelectric power plant insulted an eco-activist in front of the “Aarhus Center” Association. The discussion went viral and many social media users shared this video, characterizing it as a chauvinistic and vulgar attack.

Kosovo Albanians Join Video Campaign to Support Folk-Dancing Teacher

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

An online support campaign was launched on Monday after a Kosovo biology teacher was targeted with derogatory comments online after posting videos on TikTok of himself dancing to folk music.

Valon Canhasi, founder of social media agency Hallakate, posted a video of himself dancing to Albanian folk music at his office on Monday and urged others to follow suit to support teacher Lulzim Paci after critics claimed that his actions were inappropriate for an educator.

“I invite all of you to make a video dancing in your office or in your home,” Canhasi wrote on Facebook as he initiated a folk-dance ‘challenge’ under the hashtag #profachallenge.

Teacher Paci, from the town of Vushtrri/Vucitrn, was subjected to sustained criticism on social media after he posted several videos of his folk dances.

Among the critics was ruling Vetevendosje party MP, Fjolla Ujkani, who called on the high school director and the Vushtrri/Vucitrn Education Directorate to fire Pacik for “improper and degenerate acts”, which she claimed contravened the duty of a teacher to instill values in young people.

However Ujkani made a public apology on Monday evening in a Facebook post in which she explained that she had been a student at the high school at which Paci teaches and said “my reaction was aimed at the protection and well-being of the students, and in any case the preservation and protection of the credibility of the school”, but that she did not intend to cause harm to anyone.

In an interview with Kosovo media outlet Koha, Paci tearfully explained how the online harassment he has endured since posting the videos caused him to tell his brother to deny that they are related to avoid embarrassment, and instead to say that “[Lulzim] is my cousin”.

Supporters of Paci argued that he has the right to use his private social media accounts to publish videos of himself dancing, which do not harm anyone.

Kosovo-based media lawyer Flutura Kusari said that “freedom of expression guarantees the teacher the right to publish videos from a private environment”.

After Canhasi posted his video and launched the #profachallenge, a series of Kosovo Albanians including celebrities, politicians and teachers from various regions of the country posted videos of themselves dancing to Albanian folk songs.

Famous Kosovo singer Dafina Zeqiri responded by making a video of herself dancing with the teacher, Paci, and posting it on her TikTok account.

Actress Adriana Matoshi, known for her roles in films such as ‘Zana’ and ‘Martesa’ (‘The Marriage’), who is now an MP from the ruling Vetevendosje party, also recorded a video.

“Don’t stop dancing for anyone… You have done nothing wrong to anyone,” Matoshi wrote on Instagram.

The challenge reached Albania as well, where the first lady and leader of the Socialist Movement for Integration, LSI opposition party, Monika Kryemadhi, also posted a video of herself dancing.

Contested Bosnian Holiday and Hungarian Election Trigger Online Violations

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The start of 2022 has seen a rise in political and ethnic tensions, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Hungary.

In Bosnia, the celebration of a hotly debated holiday, Day of Republika Srpska, has exacerbated existing ethnic and political tensions between Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks. In Hungary, meanwhile, the ruling Fidesz party’s anti-LGBT+ rhetoric and smear campaigns against political opponents have marred the pre-election period.

After the election of a new prime minister in North Macedonia, old political tensions there also remain at the fore. In Serbia, meanwhile, journalists still face online death threats. Phishing scams continue to disrupt Romania’s digital space.

Banned Bosnian Serb holiday sparks ethnic hatred online

Following the commemoration on January 9 of the banned national holiday day in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, marking the 30th anniversary of the RS’s existence, political tensions in the country have worsened.

In November 2018, Bosnia’s Constitutional Court declared, for the second time since a 2015 ruling, that the Republika Srpska’s national holiday was unconstitutional because, among others, it discriminated against non-Serbs in Republika Srpska, mainly because January 9 is also a Serbian Orthodox religious celebration, St Stephen’s Day.

The holiday has triggered a series of incidents in both Bosnian and Serbian cities, including protests by Bosnian citizens living abroad.

On the same day the celebration was held, videos reporting the holiday published by Bosnian online media attracted numerous comments that included hate speech, calls for violence and warmongering rhetoric.

Serbian flags fly on the Serbian Government building in Belgrade, Serbia, 15 September 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/MARKO DJOKOVIC

On January 10, a Facebook page entitled Green Berets of Bosnia and Herzegovina, named after an ethnic Bosniak paramilitary organization, founded in Sarajevo in 1992, launched an appeal for new members.

Gorica Dodik, the daughter of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, was also targeted on January 11 with misogynistic remarks, sexist insults and hate speech over her Twitter posts on the RS holiday. Her Twitter account was also suspended for a period from the San Francisco social network.

Attacks on Orban rivals and LGBTQ+ community rise in Hungary ahead of elections

Ahead of the parliamentary election in Hungary on April 3, which Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for the first time since 2010, when he was elected PM, risks losing, the political balance in Hungary is clearly wavering.

What happens in April is likely to be a pivotal moment in the post-communist history of Hungary.

To complicate matters, on April 3, Hungarian voters will also vote in a controversial government-initiated referendum on LGBTQ+ rights. Orbán and his ruling Fidesz party have said the referendum on “child protection”, which will contain five questions, aims to preserve children from homosexual and transgender influences promoted by media inside and outside Hungary.

“If a man and a woman live together, get married and children are born, we call this a family. This is not a question of human rights, we are just calling things by their true name,” Orbán told an interview for Magyar Nemzet.


So-called Progress Flags, aimed at protesting against Hungary’s recently passed so-called Anti-Paedophilia Act, fly at the Hofvijver in The Hague, the Netherlands, 27 June 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/JEROEN JUMELET

On January 11, pro-government media outlets backed Fidesz’s anti-LGBT+ rhetoric about reaffirming the value of the traditional family. Fidesz presented misleading data report from UK, Sweden and Spain, wrongly suggesting that masses of children in these countries are being subjected to sex reassignment surgeries.

Campaigns targeting Orban’s opponents remain widespread within Hungary. Following a media campaign launched on December 20 against Imre Mártha, the head of Budapest’s public utility companies, accused of numerous allegations which turned out to be false, more misinformation has targeted the mayor of Budapest.

On January 15, a reporter published photos claiming that mayor Gergely Karácsony, a member of the Hungarian green party Dialogue for Hungary, had parked his car in a no-parking zone. The photos, however, did not prove that parking was prohibited in that area.

False accusations and misogyny mark North Macedonian digital space

After almost two months of political crisis and the parliamentary appointment on January 17 of the Social Democrat leader Dimitar Kovacevski as the new prime minister, political friction in North Macedonia remains strong.

Outgoing PM Zoran Zaev, accused of not having fully fulfilled his promises of internal reform and of poor management of the Covid crisis, remains a target of numerous attacks.


New leader of SDSM (Social Democratic Union of Macedonia) Dimitar Kovacevski puts on the protective mask after receiving credentials for new government from the North Macedonia’s President in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, 29 December 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI

On January 3, in a case on Twitter, an anonymous user tweeted that Zaev had applied for unemployment benefit after his resignation. The tweet, which featured an old photo of Zaev visiting the State Employment Agency, went viral and sparked heated debate.

In another incident, on Facebook, a woman from Gevgelija, in southeast North Macedonia, was targeted by hate speech and misogynistic comments after a news portal published an article about the vast amount of books, 438 in total, that she had read in one year. Many users have gone so far as to wish her death.

Journalists facing more online aggression and threats in Serbia

“Journalists in Serbia are one of the most frequently targeted parties online. In 30 of the 111 cyber rights violations logged in our database (38 if you include investigative journalism) journalists were subjected to online abuse and intimidation – with an alarmingly high number receiving death threats,” our latest annual digital rights report Online Intimidation: Controlling the Narrative in the Balkans, notes.

Serbia has the highest rate of online attacks on journalists in the Balkans. In many cases, the motive behind these attacks seems to be to undermine independent journalism. Investigative journalists remain targeted by politicians and pro-government media outlets with the aim of concealing wrongdoing and evidence that could embarrass those in power.

Following a case on October 15, when the pro-government tabloid Informer, supported by other tabloids, published an article on Nova.rs journalist Pero Jovović, who was then sent death threats on social media due to a post in which he showed the emoticon of the flag of Kosovo, he was the subject of another episode. Over the past holidays, his Instagram profile again received numerous death threats that users sent via private messages. The cause of the online aggression is not entirely clear.

Phishing scams endemic in Romania’s digital landscape

Romania’s online environment continue to register phishing scams and other online frauds. The most populous country in the region seems particularly exposed to large-scale frauds, involving thousands of citizens.

Romania’s Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism, DIICOT, already arrested several organised criminal groups that had been operating locally and internationally between November 2020 and July 2021, all active in the commission of cyber frauds, phishing and other online scams.


Mihai, senior broker, work on his desk at the Tradeville headquarters in Bucharest, Romania, 22 December 2021 (issued 30 December 2021). Photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

On January 11, Bitdefender cybersecurity experts working in one of the leading technology companies in the country warned that a phishing scam, first detected in July 2021, was now targeting email users, mainly in Romania, Croatia and Hungary.

Hackers send emails that appear to respond to messages previously sent by the users in which they pretend to have obtained their passwords and even intimate images of the users, and demand 1,200 euros in Bitcoin. According to Bitdefender, more than half of the emails addressed to Romanian users were sent from local IP addresses.

In another incident, which came to light in January, the district court of Oradea dismissed a civil suit filed in late 2020 by Calin Moldovan, the administrator of a gaming Facebook group, in which he demanded 4,000 euros in moral compensation from five other members of the “True Gamers”, who he accused of taking over the Facebook group.

The five users later posted pornographic images on the group in order to force Facebook to permanently suspend “True Gamers”.

But the court found that the plaintiff could not prove that the five defendants were behind the Facebook users involved in the hostile takeover. This decision is one of the first in which a court rules that a Facebook profile cannot be used to identify a person without reasonable suspicion and it could jeopardize future actions taken by the Romanian authorities against Facebook users.

Turkish Army Uses Algorithm to ‘Persecute’ Gulenists: Report

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A new report published by StateWatch, a UK-based international rights organisation monitoring the state and civil liberties in Europe, says an algorithm used to detect alleged government opponents in the Turkish Armed Forces, TSK, has been used to persecute thousands of people.

The report, “Algorithmic persecution in Turkey’s post-coup crackdown: The FETO-Meter system” says more than 20,000 military personnel have been dismissed since a failed coup attempt in 2016 on the basis of algorithms.

“The report shines a flashlight on the (mis)use of algorithms and other information-based systems by the Turkish government in its ruthless counterterrorism crackdown since the July 2016 events. Thousands of people have been put out of work, detained, and persecuted by reference to ‘scores’ assigned to them by a tool of persecution, the so-called FETO-Meter,” Ali Yildiz, one of the authors of the report and a legal expert, told BIRN.

Yildiz added that “this situation is far from being unique to Turkey: in an increasingly connected world where states make wider recourse to counter-terrorism surveillance tools, the possibility of falling victim to algorithmic persecution is high”.

“The report, therefore, serves as a wake-up call to bring more awareness to the devastating effects of algorithmic persecution and oppression not just in Turkey, but also in the entire world,” Yildiz added.

The so-called FETO-Meter is based on 97 main criteria and 290 sub-criteria, many of which violate individual privacy.

The name references alleged supporters of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen whom the government calls FETO, short for Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation. US-based Gulen has always denied any links to terrorism.

The questions for profiling and scoring individuals include information of their marriages, education, bank accounts, their children’s school records, their promotions and references in the army. The questionnaire demands information about people’s relatives and also neighbours.

It was deployed following the July 2016 coup attempt to root out alleged followers of Gulen who is accused of masterminding the failed coup.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have been profiled and assigned a ‘score’ by the algorithm, which is operated by a special unit called ‘The Office of Judicial Proceedings and Administrative Action’, ATİİİŞ, within the Turkish navy,” Emre Turkut, another author of the report and an expert on international human rights law from Hertie School Berlin, told BIRN.

Turkut said that the report includes testimonies from several high-ranking former military officers who have since sought asylum in the EU, and highlights that application of the algorithm has been arbitrary and underpinned punitive measures not only against primary suspects but anyone in their social circles, including their family members, colleagues, and neighbours.

However, Cihat Yayci, a former navy admiral and the architect of the FETO-Meter algorithm, has defended it.

“FETO militants are very successful in hiding their real identities. The FETO-Meter gave us very successful results for identifying Gulenists,” Cihat Yayci said in a TV interview in 2020.

Since 2016, 292,000 people have been detained and nearly 598,000 people investigated over their alleged links with Gulen.

According to the Turkish defence and interior ministries, nearly 21,000 members of the armed forces, 31,000 police officers, more than 5,500 gendarmerie officers and 509 coastguards have also lost their jobs over alleged links to Gulen.

More than 30,000 people are still in prison because of their alleged ties to the cleric and more than 125,000 public servants have been dismissed.

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