Tag: media freedom

Turkish Media Overseer Keeps Critical TV Station’s Screens Blank

Posted on by BIRD

Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council, RTUK, the state agency that monitors, regulates and sanctions radio and television broadcasts, has blocked the launch of a critical TV station for more than a year.

Sozcu, one of Turkey’s most read daily newspapers, bought the local TV station over a year ago and made all the preparations necessary for the start of nationwide broadcasting.

But RTUK has stopped the launch of Sozcu TV in its tracks, by not accepting its application for a change of logo, Sozcu said on Thursday.

“Sozcu TV bought SRT TV channel from Mega Agency and Advertisement Company on February 21, 2020, which was broadcasting nationwide with the central satellite system in Sivas. However, the RTUK has unconstitutionally not put Sozcu TV’s application for a logo change on its agenda,” Sozcu explained.

Sozcu said that it first applied for a logo change on February 27 2020. “Sozcu applied to change the TV channel’s logo from ‘Sivas SRT’ to ‘SZC’ but the RTUK did not answer. After we at Sozcu daily newspaper made this public … RTUK overruled the application and fined Sozcu, saying Sivas SRT’s logo was being misused as ‘SRT Sivas,’” Sozcu added.

Since then, Sozcu says it has applied four more times to RTUK, which has still not given an answer. The RTUK is constitutionally obliged to answer such applications from between eight to 10 days.

Observers say that, in recent years, RTUK has become a tool of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to put pressure on remaining independent media in the country.

A recent report from the Journalists’ Association of Turkey said that between July and September 2020 alone, RTUK issued 90 penalties against independent media outlets, including halts to broadcasting and administrative fines.

On February 10, RTUK again fined KRT TV, Fox TV, Halk TV and Tele 1, all of which are seen as critical of the authorities for different reasons.

While the Turkish government, via RTUK, stops the launch of more unwelcome critical TV stations, existing TV stations have suffered from increased political pressure.

Olay TV, which hired many well-known senior journalists after a Turkish businessman bought the channel last summer, was closed down in December 2020, only two months after its launch.

The owner said the station had been unable to withstand the political pressure, and its editors had failed to find a new owner.

The Human Rights Watchdog Freedom House listed Turkey as not free in 2020. The World Press Freedom Index, of another watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, ranks Turkey in 154th place among 180 countries in terms of press freedom.

Turkish Court Overrules Erdogan’s Power Grab Over Anadolu Agency

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

In a surprise setback to the authoritarian President, the Turkish Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday that the Presidency’s move to take direct control over the Anadolu Agency is against the constitution.

The news agency is constitutionally an autonomous institution with a budget supplied by the state. But after the country introduced an executive presidential system in 2018, concentrating power in the head of state, it was put under the direct control of the Communications Directorate of Turkish Presidency by presidential decree.

“The control of Anadolu Agency by a directorate under the Turkish Presidency does not accord with Anadolu Agency’s autonomy and may harm the objectivity of its publications,” the court said in a statement.

The statement added that such direct control undermined the institutional independence of the agency’s organisation and human resources.

Opposition parties and media experts accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of turning Anadolu Agency into a government mouthpiece.

The Constitutional Court made its decision following the submission of a complaint by the main opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP. Only two judges voted against, while the other 13 members voted to scrap the presidential takeover.

Anadolu Agency was established by Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in 1920, mainly to tell the world about the Turkish War of Independence that followed the end of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1925, the agency was made a private company with a view to making it a modern and independent media outlet, but with funding secured by the state.

A century on, it is now a global news agency with publications in 13 different languages, including Arabic, English, French and Russian.

The new agency has also become an important instrument in Turkey’s application of “soft power” foreign policy activism in the Balkans. It operates in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Albanian and Macedonian with regional offices in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Skopje, North Macedonia.

OSCE Chides Kosovo for Preventing Entry of Serbian Journalists

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The OSCE Mission in Kosovo has said it is “concerned” about the recent denial of entry to the country by journalistic crews from Serbia at the Jarinje crossing point.

“Such actions not only contribute to the difficulties that journalists face in conducting their work, but also send a negative message about press freedom and the tolerance for a pluralistic media landscape,” OSCE Kosovo wrote on its Facebook account.

A crew for the Radio Television Serbia TV Show Right to Tomorrow was banned from entering Kosovo on Thursday. The show’s editor, Svetlana Vukumirovic, told RTS they were banned from entering because they did not announce their arrival 72 hours earlier.

“No one ever asked the show’s crew or other journalists to announce themselves in such a way before,” Vukumirovic told RTS.

Earlier, an RTS journalistic team tried to enter Kosovo on February 15, but were also denied permission. Four days later, they were officially banned from entry. The Journalists’ Association of Serbia, UNS, in a press release condemned an “attack on press freedom”.

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo and Metohija, which represents Kosovo Serb media, organised a protest on the border line on Wednesday. Association president Budimir Nicic said stopping RTS journalists from entering Kosovo was “classic harassment”.

“This is a classic harassment, this is a classic threat to human rights and media freedoms, this is a violation of all civilization values ​​and norms, and must stop,” Nicic said at the protest.

The Serbian government’s liaison officer with Pristina, Dejan Pavicevic, told the UNS that only senior state officials had an obligation to announce their arrival in advance – not journalists.

“This only applies to top government officials … We will now ask Brussels to take concrete steps because this is a flagrant violation of the [2013 Brussels] Agreement [between Belgrade and Pristina], on freedom of movement and the right of journalists to freedom of reporting,” Pavicevic told UNS.

The Independent Journalist Association of Serbia, NUNS, warned “that the journalistic profession does not serve for political undercutting and collecting points, but to report honestly and credibly on events that are of public importance”.

Kosovo and Serbia reached an agreement about officials’ visits in 2014 that included a procedure for announcing visits of officials from one country to the other. However, both countries have continued stopping officials from entering from the other country, often without explanation.

Greek Police Accused of Violence at Education Bill Protests

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Police in Greece have been criticised after videos circulated on social media of officers violently pushing and shoving photojournalists covering a protest against a new bill for universities on Wednesday.

The photojournalists’ union said riot police beat up a member of the union who had been reporting on the protests.

It added that one day before, police tripped up photojournalists covering another protest,­ this time in support of Dimitris Koufontinas – another union member, jailed on November 17 last year – now on hunger strike demanding transfer to another prison.

The new bill among other things allows police to maintain a presence on university campuses. A law withdrawn in 2019 long prohibited police from entering university grounds in Greece, in memory of those killed in 1973 when the military regime violently crushed an uprising at the Athens Polytechnic.

Niki Kerameus, the Education Minister, says the problem of security on Greek campuses has become acute and current lawlessness is forcing Greek students to study abroad.

Outside the Greek parliament, during the debate on the bill, a group of some 200 people, drawn from the main protest of some 5,000 protesters, clashed with riot police, who used tear gas to disperse them. Police took 52 individuals into custody.

Konstantinos Zilos, a photojournalist covering that protest, complained to BIRN of the police’s “dangerous repression” of citizens and media professionals.

Besides the incident involving the beaten-up photojournalist, he added, “the police a number of times have prevented our work, cutting our access without reason and blocking our cameras with their hands or bodies”.

Alexandra Tanka, a reporter for in.gr, told BIRN that a 21-year-old photography student “was surrounded in a glimpse of an eye by the riot shields and suddenly cut off from his colleagues”.


University students clash with riot police in front of the Greek parliament, during a protest against the new draft bill on higher education in central Athens, Greece, 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/YANNIS KOLESIDIS

The immediate intervention of photojournalists and reporters resulted in the police letting him free. “A photojournalist asked them why they were not arresting that person who seemed to also be a photographer, pointing to a policeman holding a camera recording the demonstration,” Tanka recalled.

But not everyone was as lucky as the photography student, she said. “Students were beaten up and had to spend the night behind bars. According to reports, a girl was beaten up so badly that she was injured in the head and had to be hospitalized to get stiches.”

Nikos Markatos, former dean of the National Technical University of Athens, told the private radio station Real FM that police “were jumping on pavements with their motorbikes” and that one of these motorbikes had injured a girl, sending her to hospital – “the same hospital as my son, who was pushed, fell down and twisted his shoulder”.

Markatos said a third student who was hit on the chin with a fire extinguisher by a police officer at the protest, breaking his chin bone and some teeth, was sent to the same hospital.

Pictures shared on social media showed police violently attacking the protesters, sometimes hitting them after they had already been arrested.

Mera25, the party of former government minister Yanis Varoufakis, said Sofia Sakorafa, an MP for the party and vice-president of the Greek parliament, was also attacked by riot police outside police headquarters in Attica, where she was present when protesters were brought there on Wednesday evening.

The photojournalists’ union condemned attacks on journalists by police, saying that this was tending to become “a habit” and adding that the government had “a duty to inform us if freedom of press still exists”.

On January 21, the Minister of Citizens’ Protection, Michalis Chrisochoidis, presented new national guidelines for policing demonstrations.

According to these rules, journalists covering protests now have to do their work from a certain area specified by the authorities, with the minister adding this was being imposed to protect the journalists themselves.

However, rights groups disagree. On February 2, the international Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, RSF, in a report, warned that the new guidelines in Greece were “likely to restrict the media’s reporting and access to information”.

Commenting on the new guidelines, the former head of the photojournalists’ union, Marios Lolos, said that “in 99 per cent of such cases”, attacks on photojournalists covering protests do not come from protesters “but from the police”.

Independent Radio Silenced in Hungary

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Hungary’s last independent radio broadcaster Klubradio lost its battle to stay on the air on Tuesday, as the Metropolitan Court of Budapest confirmed the decision of the government-controlled Media Council not to renew its licence, meaning the radio will be forced to move online from February 14.

The move is seen as the latest step to curb critical voices in the Hungarian media by the autocratic government of Viktor Orban, which since coming to power in 2010 has set about co-opting or killing off critical media outlets, shrewdly concealing most as neutral business decisions. This has drawn sharp criticism from the European Union and media freedom watchdogs.

Klubradio has long been in the crosshairs of Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz party. The last time its licences had to be renewed, it had to battle for two years through the courts.

Due to its critical tone, the radio does not receive any state advertising and so largely survives on donations from its listeners. It has a loyal audience of around 200,000, mostly in Budapest, as it can only be heard in the vicinity of the capital after being systematically stripped of its frequencies in the countryside, leaving Hungarians outside of Budapest with no independent radio to listen to.

Klubradio’s licence expires at midnight on February 14 and its journalists have been doing “survival exercises” in the last few weeks to train their largely elderly audience to switch to the radio’s online platform.

Klubradio called the verdict a political, not a legal, one. Andras Arato, president of the broadcaster, told Media1 that the verdict encapsulates the sad state of the rule of law in Hungary, which is such that a radio station can be silenced based on fabricated reasons.

Arato said it would challenge the verdict at the Supreme Court, while the CEO of the broadcaster, Richard Stock, would not rule out taking the case to the Court of Justice of the EU.

Opposition politicians slammed the government for yet another blatant move to restrict media freedom in Hungary. The chairman of the Democratic Coalition, former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, posted a quote from Orban in 2018 telling the European Parliament in Strasbourg that, “we would never dare to silence those who disagree with us”.

Gyurcsany retorted: “This government prefers silence – we have to end this paranoid system to regain free speech.”

The head of the International Press Institute (IPI), Scott Griffen, said before the court’s decision that, “these efforts by the Fidesz-controlled Media Council to block Klubradio’s license renewal are part of a far wider and calculated attempt to eradicate the station from the airwaves and muzzle one of the few independent media outlets in Hungary.”

Montenegrin Govt Urged to Commit to Press Freedom Reforms

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A group of media organisations has called on the new Montenegrin government to commit to reforms that will build and maintain media freedom.

Media Freedom Rapid Response, MFRR, the Southeast Europe Media Organization, SEEMO, and their partners published a report on Wednesday, demnanding protection of media freedom in Montenegro.

“It will take sustained and concerted efforts by Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic to improve protections for media freedom and the rule of law. They must devote particular attention to addressing the myriad problems faced by journalists and media workers in Montenegro,” said iNik Williams, coordinator at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, ECPMF, in a press release.

In parliamentary elections held on August 30, three opposition blocs won a slender majority of 41 of the 81 seats in parliament, ousting the long-ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS. After the election, on December 4, new Prime Minister Krivokapic, among other things, promised his government would restore and protect media freedom.

In the report, MFRR called for an end to impunity for crimes against journalists and media workers by ensuring police and prosecutors investigate all attacks and threats and bring perpetrators to justice.

It also called for establishing shared standards and principles for the regulation of the media market to encourage a fair playing field.

The report warned about the current ownership concentration of much of the media, saying management of state support funds and public advertising had been paired with a ruthless campaign against independent media.

The media organisations pointed to the prison sentence issued to the well-known investigative journalist Jovo Martinovic, calling it an attack on journalism. In a second-instance verdict, the court found him guilty of mediation in drug trafficking; he insisted he only met criminals for the purpose of his investigation.

“The new government should continue reform of the public broadcaster. It should start reforming journalistic source protection and, generally, ensure that all new or amended media laws are drafted in line with international standards and best practice on media freedom and pluralism,” the report said.

In its 2020 progress report on the candidate country, the European Commission noted a lack of media freedom in Montenegro, stressing that important old cases of attacks on journalists remained unresolved. The Commission warned also of the polarization of the media scene and of weak self-regulatory mechanisms.

“Concerns also remain about national public broadcaster RTCG’s editorial independence and professional standards,” the progress report said.

Turkish Government is Tightening Media Censorship, Report Says

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A new report, “Media Monitoring Report”, published by the Journalists’ Association of Turkey on November 12, says censorship of the media has increased and that online media platforms are becoming more targeted.

The report said that 83 journalists are currently being held in prisons and that 245 journalists are being tried by the courts.

It said censorship has increased rapidly, especially of online media platforms, since parliament adopted a new law on digital rights in July last year, and added that pressures and penalties on the media had intensified in the last few months.

“Media content will be easily removed under the new law, which became effective from October 1,” the report said.

It added that “AKP and MHP representatives who they have the majority on the Supreme Board of Radio and Television, RTUK, use the existing regulations as an arbitrary punishment tool [on independent media].”

[The Justice and Development Party, AKP, and the MHP, the Nationalist Movement Party, form the ruling coalition in Turkey.]

According to the report, the RTUK, the state agency for monitoring, regulating and sanctioning radio and television broadcasts, issued 90 penalties on independent media, including stopping broadcasting and administrative fines, between July and September this year alone.

“Digital media platforms are starting to be reached [by the state] as much as the mainstream media. As a matter of fact, it was seen that a single journalist’s column is shared on social media platforms more than a mainstream newspaper’s total circulation in a three-month period,” the report wrote.

The report underlined that workers on online media institutions face many other difficulties.

“Internet journalists are classified in the office workers sector, not in the journalism sector. In other words, they are not recognised as journalists by the government,” the report noted, adding that because of this, journalists on online media are not entitled to official press cards.

“As a result, internet journalist cannot follow the news at state institutions or face the risk of arrest when they follow street protests,” it warned.

It also observed that many journalists face financial hardship as a result of the pandemic while the level of union membership among Turkish journalist is still very low, at only 7.88 per cent.

“Following the end of government’s ban on firing employees during the pandemic, it is presumed that the number of the unemployed journalists will increase,” the report said and added that many journalists are forced to take unpaid leave.

Pandemic Pushes Slovakia to Finally Target Disinformation

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Standing on the blue-backed stage of the Globsec Forum in Bratislava on October 7, wearing an elegant black mask coordinated with her dress, Slovak President Zuzana Caputova addressed the main challenges that the pandemic poses to the world and the rule of law.

“It has exposed the real capacities and limitations of our crisis management, which has rested in peace for years,” she said. “Once again, we have seen that the spread of disinformation and hoaxes can be deadly,” she added, pinpointing one of the most pressing issues for her country.

Slovakia has been battling hybrid threats and disinformation for years, with most of the fighting falling on the shoulders of non-governmental activists and information and security experts. This year, however, the destructive power of disinformation manifested itself palpably for the first time.

“Slovakia is not doing a very good job in battling the pandemic at the moment,” admitted Marek Krajci, the Slovak health minister, on October 9, explaining the ever-growing numbers of new COVID-19 cases in the country. “I think the huge disinformation campaign is reflected in the bad results that we’re seeing right now.”

Another major manifestation of the frustration and anger caused by disinformation about COVID was witnessed at the weekend, when hundreds of people joined an unannounced and illegal protest in Bratislava, organised by football hooligans and neo-Nazi groups. Attacking the iron gate of the governmental office compound, they chanted vulgar slogans about the prime minister, threw stones at the police and called for people to ignore the new restrictive measures designed to combat the virus.

While during the first wave of the pandemic Slovakia saw itself as a “winner” of the crisis, largely thanks to the responsible behaviour of the general public, strict early measures and obligatory masks, this autumn has brought a much stronger second wave than the country feared.

According to opinion polls, people in Slovakia are unsure what information about coronavirus they can trust, support for government-mandated restrictive measures has decreased significantly and, ultimately, so has their trust in government leaders.

“It would be easy to blame the media or education systems or the internet for the erosion of citizens’ confidence, but do political leaders today project trust?” President Caputova asked rhetorically at Globsec, opening an important question for her own country, too.

Slovak President Zuzana Caputova gives the opening address at the Globsec Bratislava Forum 2020. Photo: Globsec

A good start, but a long way to go

The new Slovak government that came into office in March defined countering disinformation and hybrid threats as one of its main goals for the next four years. In its manifesto, Igor Matovic‘s government named the fight against disinformation as a priority in foreign politics, defence, education and the media.

“The spreading of disinformation and hoaxes endangers the development of a knowledge-based society,” said the program of the new government. “The Government of SR will prepare an action plan for coordinating the fight against hybrid threats and spreading of disinformation, and build adequate centralised capacities to carry it out.”

Almost seven months later, this “action plan” is still a work in progress, the coordination centre is nowhere to be seen and the disinformation agenda is scattered among a few ministries, with no clear unified strategy in place.

“The first key thing that happened is that this theme has finally been addressed politically, and it is being given the proper attention,” Daniel Milo, an analyst at the Globsec Policy Institute, told BIRN.

“In previous years, there were some lonely fighters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or in the police, but there was no systematic support,” he said, adding that while it was good the new cabinet set as an official goal in its program the targeting of disinformation, it has yet to result in any concrete action.

One of the more visible efforts came this summer, when the Health Ministry hired Jakub Goda, a leading journalist focusing on disinformation, to help with its strategic communications. Reacting to the growing “infodemic” surrounding the coronavirus, the ministry is starting to focus on debunking hoaxes and sharing verified information from medical experts via social networks. “In the middle of the pandemic, the urgency of this problem became even clearer,” said Goda in an interview with BIRN earlier this month.

The Health Ministry prepared a short guide on how to see through disinformation about COVID-19, joined an information campaign by public broadcaster RTVS in which a leading expert on infectious diseases talked about the safety of wearing face masks, and recorded a video with COVID-19 patients sharing their personal experiences with the virus.

While the video registered an admirable 600,000 views with over 3,300 shares by October 19, the most viral posts from extremist politicians questioning the coronavirus crisis have been watched several times more, thanks to a developed network of dozens of Slovak Facebook pages that spread disinformation on a regular basis. The fight against disinformation by the Health Ministry is far from over, said Goda, adding that the ministry has already expanded capacities and more people should be hired soon.

Although Goda’s work at the ministry is essential, it is only a first step, experts think. “It is a good step, but to think that a single person will save the strategic communications of a whole ministry in such a big topic is naive,” said Milo.

“Jakub has dealt with these topics for years and I value him as a colleague, but this alone doesn’t stand a chance in stopping the enormous avalanche of lies about COVID-19 that are shared online and on social networks every day,” he explained. “However, he can do his part and maybe he can convince the management at the ministry that the communication and information part is just as important today as the medical measures.”

Another visible and popular vehicle for combatting disinformation is the Slovak police force’s Facebook page dedicated specifically to uncovering hoaxes. During the pandemic, police experts have debunked dozens of lies and manipulative posts about the virus, sharing the verified information with its 85,000 followers. Its most popular videos debunking lies about COVID-19 testing sites or the government preparing a tough lockdown were viewed by between 100,00 and 200,000 people each.

The number of COVID-19 cases in Slovakia is growing exponentially, data shows. Photo: Office of the Government of SR

Saving democracy

Over the past few years, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs has taken the lead in combatting disinformation in Slovakia, focusing on developing strategic communications with the public. This year it opened a new department to counter hybrid threats and “enforce resilience” in the system.

“We have basically provoked more government activity in this area,” said Imrich Babic, head of the strategic communications department at the Slovak Foreign Ministry. “Now, there is big hope that it becomes more systematic. It is in the legislative plans of different ministries already, so it’s on a good path.”

The Foreign Ministry, it seems, might be the one part of government where most people, including political leaders, understand the importance of having clear and unambiguous messages in communication. Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok, the former Slovak ambassador to Washington and Brussels, said in his first press conference in March that there is no doubt about Slovakia’s place in Europe and in the world: its allies are in the West, and its aim is to protect European values and unity.

“It’s a question of strategic importance, of protecting a healthy democracy,” said Marcel Pesko, the special ambassador who is heading up the hybrid threats department at the Foreign Ministry.

“Slovakia is very vulnerable in this sense,” he added, explaining that he thinks it’s due to the combination of history, political communication and the fragile democratic heritage. “Based on all of this, Slovaks are more prone to trusting disinformation.”

Experts at the ministry agree that Slovakia needs to significantly step up its fight against hybrid threats. And that means adopting the “whole of society” approach: reforming the education curriculum, pushing for more control of social networks and forming a centralised coordination mechanism within government. “The process has already started; we just need to frame it now. We would like to create the coordination mechanism by the end of the year,” Pesko told BIRN.

The proposed mechanism should create a system for dealing with hybrid threats, which includes all the ministries as well as other government offices. Its precise form, however, has yet to be decided.

In the meantime, the Foreign Ministry is organising educational programs at universities and schools; setting up workshops for Slovak diplomats and ministry employees; coordinating their policies and communication in strategic areas; and fighting disinformation online, in the media and through direct communication from political leaders.

Slovak Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok speaks at a press conference after a government meeting. Photo: Office of the Government of SR

Addressing security threats

Even before COVID-19 spread across Europe, Slovakia had been the target of propaganda campaigns by Russia and China, including various forms of hybrid warfare, according to the Slovak intelligence services.

In August, Slovakia became the 28th EU state to join the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki and the Slovak Defence Ministry has become one of the leaders of the fight against disinformation within the new government.

“The Defence Ministry wants to be active in this area,” Martina Koval Kakascikova, spokeswoman for the ministry, told BIRN. “One of the reasons is that hybrid threats will become a significant part of military operations in the future.”

In October, the ministry hired a special advisor for dealing with hybrid threats, and the communications department has taken on an even bigger role debunking disinformation and hoaxes, too.

“Moreover, the pandemic has reinforced the disinformation narratives, so the Defence Ministry has intensified its strategic communications, whether on social networks or in the field,” said Koval Kakascikova. “We also think exchanging information and experiences in the area of combatting hybrid threats and disinformation with our partners is essential.”

Although public communication from leading politicians in the previous government could be described as chaotic or conflicting at best, there is some evidence that the activities of the individual experts at the foreign and defence ministries has bolstered public support for Slovakia’s membership of NATO and the EU over the past three years. While in 2017 only 43% of Slovaks supported NATO membership, by 2019 that support had grown to 56%, according to a Globsec Trends survey. Eurobarometer, which monitors the evolution of public opinion in all EU member states, confirmed that a steady majority of Slovaks still supports the EU. Trust in liberal democracy and Slovakia’s Western allies, particularly the US, remains a challenge, however.

An additional challenge will come later this month after the Slovak government announced its intention to carry out a mass testing program across the entire country, with the aim of becoming the first country in Europe to pull off such a feat.

Disinformation experts have already warned that anti-COVID and anti-health system campaigns will definitely take off, putting an extra strain on the government’s efforts in trying to persuade people about the benefits of general testing. “In the next two weeks, so-called agitprop will take over – a fast drumming, the more absurd the better,” predicted Infosecurity.sk. “There’s nothing to lose. People are ready to listen.”

To counter this threat effectively, Marcel Pesko, the person heading up the hybrid threats department at the Foreign Ministry, admitted that, “there is still a lot of work to do in this area.”

Although all government experts agree that activists and NGOs have, until now, done a good job in fighting disinformation, they say it’s time the state picks up the baton. “The role of the state can’t be replaced by NGOs or the media,” said Pesko. “It is important to have political will to deal with these topics. And I can see that now.”

Montenegrin Broadcaster Torn by Accusations of Sabotage and Political Interference

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The management of Montenegro’s public broadcaster, RTCG, on Thursday accused members of the managing council and some editors of compromising editorial policy and working for the interests of former opposition parties that now form the new majority in parliament.

It accused the two NGO representatives on the nine-member council, Bojana Jokic and Milan Radovic, of deliberately sabotaging production and of helping the former opposition blocs to win the August 30 parliamentary elections. Jokic and Radovic represent civil society on the council.

“Internal pressure increased from party sleepers, who were ordered to sabotage the programme and compromise the editorial policy of RTCG. Council members Milan Radovic and Bojana Jokic are assisting them with the goal of the parliamentary majority taking over the public service as soon as possible,” a press release said.

The fiery response came after Jokic and Radovic on Thursday accused RTCG management of exerting unacceptable political pressure, after two editors were dismissed for disagreeing with the  broadcaster’s editorial policy.

Editor Bojan Terzic said he was quitting because of the hostile way the broadcaster covered the issue of the Serbian Orthodox Church – a hot and divisive topic in the recent elections.

RTCG management also replaced another editor, Zoran Lekovic, after he also accused it on Facebook of unprofessionalism and of religious and national intolerance.

On Thursday, Jokic and Radovic called on the management to resign. “Freedom of expression of journalists must not be endangered. Pressure on journalists has increased so we call on the management to resign, and on journalists to self-organise”, Radovic said.

The parties that form the new majority on parliament have long accused RTCG as acting as a mouthpiece for the ousted Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS.

A battle over the future direction of the broadcaster was therefore inevitable after three opposition blocs won a slender majority of 41 of the 81 seats in parliament on August 30, ousting the long-ruling DPS.

In its 2020 progress report on Montenegro, the European Commission expressed “serious concern” about “continued political interference” in the work of the broadcaster.

Earlier, in 2018, the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders noted the replacement of several key managers at RTCG with supporters of the DPS.

The appointment of new management in March 2017 that tried to distance itself from the ruling party and produce more balanced content created hope that things would change – but civil society organisations and the opposition have since said that those initial gains were rapidly lost.

After sacking two members of the managing council, drawn from the ranks of civil society, citing alleged conflicts of interest, in March 2018 parliament appointed successors who were seen as closer to the then ruling coalition.

Montenegro Jail Sentence for Investigative Journalist Condemned as ‘Kafkaesque’

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Press freedom advocates on Thursday condemned a High Court ruling in Montenegro that sentenced the well-known investigative journalist Jovo Martinovic to a year in prison for drug trafficking.

In a second-instance verdict, the prominent journalist was found guilty of mediation in drug trafficking. He was acquitted of charges of organised crime activity.

As Martinovic already spent 15 months behind bars in pre-trial detention from 2015 to 2017, he will not go back to prison, however.

After the verdict was issued, Martinovic – who has worked as a contributing reporter for respected international media including The Economist, Newsday, The Global Post and The Financial Times as well as BIRN – told BIRN he had expected a conviction.

“The court refused to take into account all the evidence in my favour during the entire procedure, and most importantly refused to acknowledge that I was on a journalistic assignment that day [of his arrest], which the witnesses confirmed,” Martinovic said.

The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, RSF, said it was black day for press freedom, adding that Martinovic had been convicted despite a clear lack of evidence.

“RSF will continue supporting the journalist. This kafkaesque judicial prosecution lasting five years has to come to an end,” RSF said.

Martinovic was arrested in October 2015 alongside 17 others from Montenegro in a joint police operation conducted with Croatian police. He spent almost a year-and-a-half in custody before being released in January 2017 ahead of the trial.

In January 2019, in a first-instance ruling, a court jailed him for 18 months for drug trafficking and membership of a criminal organisation. But the Appeal Court in October that year overturned the verdict. As a result, a retrial was ordered.

The journalist always insisted he had made contacts with alleged drug traffickers only as part of his legitimate reporting work.

Many media unions and rights groups agreed, describing the case and the verdicts as a serious blow to journalism and freedom of expression and called for his acquittal.

As BIRN reported previously, Martinovic made contacts with two of the 17 suspects arrested in 2015: Dusko Martinovic – no relation to the journalist – and Namik Selmanovic.

Dusko Martinovic, the main suspect in the case, was also a convicted member of a gang of jewel thieves known as the so-called “Pink Panthers”. Operating in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, they are believed to have stolen hundreds of millions of euros’ worth of jewellery. Martinovic worked with him on a series of TV shows about the robbers produced by Vice media group.

He worked alongside Selmanovic when a French production company, CAPA Presse, hired them to contribute to research on a documentary about weapons smuggling.

Dusko Martinovic was sentenced to six years and three months in prison in January 2019. Selmanovic has turned state’s evidence.

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