Tag: media

Albania Journalist Union ‘Expected’ Public TV Director’s Arrest

Posted on by BIRD

Albania’s Special Court on Monday confirmed the decision by the Special Prosecution Against Organized Crime and Corruption, SPAK, on Friday to arrest the former General Director of Albanian Radio National Television, RTSH, Thoma Gëllçi, for abuse of duty over a tender worth about 708,000 euros.

The head of Albania’s Union of Journalists, Aleksander Cipa, told BIRN that they had earlier denounced abuses and corruption with public funds at the RTSH. “We think that embezzlement and illegal use [of public funds] occurs with public media assets,” he told BIRN.

“In this context, the arrest of the former General Director of RTSH is a serious event. I do not have accurate and sufficient information about the concrete file that SPAK has on Gëllçi, [however] as our media have shared different optics of judging and serving information in the most unprofessional way,” he continued.

“What is worrying for us has to do with the deliberate obstruction and stagnant state of corruption in the mechanism and management of public media in Albania,” he added.

The suspect tender was conducted in 2018. A SPAK investigation started in February 2020 and lasted about 18 months before ending in October 2021 with an arrest warrant.

The SPAK announcement stated that as well as Gëllçi, three members of the Bid Evaluation Commission of the procurement, with the object of buying equipment for the RTSh Agro channel for up to 86 million euros, without VAT, had been arrested on Friday last week, October 9. RTSH Agro channel is dedicated to culture and agriculture.

Gëllçi was dismissed on May 21 this year after his term ended. He formerly worked for Zeri i Popullit, a newspaper connected to the ruling Socialist Party and has been head of information of governments formed by the SP.

He was mentioned in a report of the OSBE/ODHIR related to the local elections in 2019 in the context of impartiality.

“RTSH’s General Director, Thoma Gëllçi, is a former editor-in-chief of the SP newspaper Zëri i Popullit and served as the Head of the Department of Information in several SP governments. Furthermore, the RTSH remains partially dependent on state funding. Dependence on the state budget and politicization of RTSH management raise concerns about the impartiality of the public broadcaster,” this report said.

Rights Groups Urge Albania to Cancel ‘Media and Info Agency’

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Six organisations partnered under the Media Freedom Rapid Response group called on the government of Edi Rama in Albania to abandon plans to create a Media and Information Agency while urging the European Union to include the issue in future talks on membership.

ARTICLE 19, European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, ECPMF, International Press Institute, IPI, OBC Transeuropa, OBCT, European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and Free Press Unlimited (FPU) said an already difficult situation for Albania journalists would likely deteriorate further and government influence on the flow of information would solidity if plans for the agency go forward.

“The undersigned partners of Media Freedom Rapid Response today express serious concern over a new Media and Information Agency (MIA) established by the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama in Albania and urge the ruling Socialist Party to immediately cancel the establishment to ensure it will not be used to further solidify control over the flow of public information,” the letter reads.

“We also urge the European Union to immediately engage with the Albanian government to raise these concerns as a matter of priority in future accession talks,” it adds.

Plans for the agency were announced on 20 September. According to it, the spokesperson of the government will “will be at the same level as that of a state minister” and will hire and fire spokespersons of all state institutions and will also produce “audiovisual or press information” to be distributed for free and also “observe media and mass communication tools, to take note of the perception and views of the public towards the activities of [government] institutions and the public administration”.

Albanian media dubbed the agency “a ministry of propaganda” and a “ministry of truth”, though the government claims it has borrowed the model from German and Italian governments, which, according to it, have similar structures.

“Our organisations share the concerns expressed by various leading editors-in-chief, civil society groups and media unions in Albania that rather than improve journalists’ access to public information, the establishment of the MIA may result in the exact opposite,” the letter by the rights organisations reads.

“Context is vital here,” it adds. “Journalists in Albania currently work in an extremely difficult climate for accessing information from government sources. The government communicates with journalists via WhatsApp groups instead of using official communication channels. Reporters working for independent media are regularly discriminated against when seeking information or comment from ministers. Journalists viewed as representing ‘opposition’ outlets are denied accreditation or barred from asking questions at press conferences,” it continues.

They also see the agency’s role of “observing mass communication means” as a problem that “sets alarm bells ringing”.

“Following major revelations about the collection of citizen’s data by political parties via state institutions, the notion of tax-payer money being used to fund the monitoring of the press and social media by a government agency sets alarm bells ringing,” the letter reads.

Following the outcry from local rights organisations and journalists, the government has not yet moved to establish the agency and has not appointed a director, although it is widely expected that PM Edi Rama’s current spokesperson, Endri Fuga, will hold the position.

Rama has a poor record in terms of building independent institutions. Last June, he defied explicit requests by the European Commission to not appoint Armela Krasniqi, a close collaborator and former party spokesperson, as chairman of the Audiovisual Media Authority, an agency that should be politically independent.

“In the longer term, this agency ultimately risks being a powerful tool for any government, current or future, to control the flow of public information to the media and to influence what citizens read, hear and watch. The role of journalists is to act as a filter between government and citizens. Limiting their ability to do so by constraining opportunities to question officials and side-lining critical journalists severely limits the ability of the press to do its job and hold power to account,” the letter reads.

Albania Govt’s Planned Information Agency Accused of ‘Propaganda’ Role

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Albanian government has come under criticism from the opposition and rights groups after it decided on Saturday to establish a new Agency for Media and Information that will centralise the government’s media messaging, sparking allegations that Prime Minister Edi Rama’s administration is seeking to evade media scrutiny.

The agency will be led by the government’s spokesperson, whose position will be “at the same level as that of a state minister”. It will control the hiring and firing of press officers in all central government institutions, including ministries.

It role will also be to “observe media and mass communication tools, to take note of the perception and views of the public towards the activities of [government] institutions and the public administration”, the government decision said.

“As part of the Agency, in any ministry of central government institution, structures will be created or employees will be appointed for information and media communication, appointed by the Agency to represent the respective institutions in their public and media communications, or to carry out any duty ordered by the director of the Agency,” it added.

Agron Gjekmarkaj, an opposition Democratic Party MP, called the move “an imitation of Goebbelsian tools”, a reference to Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.

“This Agency for Information is another instrument of propaganda, control and blackmail,” Gjekmarkaj wrote on Facebook on Saturday.

Aleksander Cipa, head of Albanian Media Union, a rights NGO in Tirana, said the decision was a move that aim to “centralise public information”.

“Such practices create a serious problem regarding propaganda and pre-prepared information,” Cipa said.

The government claims the agency is based on “successful similar models in Italy and Germany”.

Socialist Party Prime Minister Rama has already been criticised by domestic and international rights organisations for closing doors to the media by not holding press conferences, creating pre-prepared ‘news’ reports and by livestreaming his political activities using his own crews of camera operatotrs.

Other institutions have moved in the same direction, by employing media crews and distributing ‘news’ reports to private television stations that are pre-prepared for broadcast, as well as publishing them on social media.

Kosovo Urged to Start Countering Russian Media Disinformation

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

A report published on Tuesday by the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development, KIPRED, about the potential for Russian media disinformation to undermine Kosovo’s statehood urges the authorities to address UN member states with an appropriate strategy to counter it.

The executive director of the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development, Lulzim Peci, told a press conference that the authorities are doing nothing to counter what he called the “Russian diplomatic war against Kosovo”.

“The reactions of Kosovo’s institutions have come without a proper policy on how to act towards Russia and the same institutions have not built any narrative about the Russian state,” Peci said.

The report, entitled ‘Kosovo Observatory: Russian Diplomatic War and Media Disinformation’, analysed statements, press conferences, articles and other documents from Russia that were published from June 1 to August 15 this year.

Peci said the report calculated that “out of 500 news articles that directly or indirectly related to Kosovo, 96 or 19.2 per cent of them contained misinformation”.

According to the report, the largest number of articles containing misinformation were published by Sputnik Serbia (71 items), followed by TASS (nine), Russia Today (four), UNZ (four), Sputnik International (three), Russian Insider (two), The Duran (two) and Newsfront (one).

The report concludes that Russia is trying to undermine Kosovo’s statehood and Western engagement in Kosovo and the region, and to change the narratives about war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, thus undermining the foundations of international justice.

Russian media articles have also accused Kosovo of oppressing local Serbs and the Serbian Orthodox Church, and of disrespecting an agreement to establishing an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities.

The report warns that a critical moment has come at the end of a moratorium agreed in Washington for Kosovo not to actively seek membership of international organisations and for Serbia not to campaign against Kosovo’s recognition.

“This moment can be used by Russia to work together with Serbia to implement an aggressive campaign for the derecognition of Kosovo,” the report says.

Polish State of Emergency at Belarus Border Alarms Journalists

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

At the request of the government, Polish President Andrzej Duda on Thursday declared a state of emergency on the Belarus border for 30 days which limits the access of unauthorised people to a three-kilometre-wide stretch of land along the border in two eastern counties.

The unprecedented decision in Poland’s post-communist history, “was taken in connection to a particular threat to the security of citizens and public order, related to the current situation on the state border of Poland with Belarus,” the official statement from the President’s office says.

Since early August, over 3,000 attempts to cross the border with Poland were made by migrants, mostly from the Middle East and Afghanistan, according to Polish border guards.

Most experts and governments say the autocratic leader of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, is deliberately fomenting a crisis in retaliation to the EU imposing sanctions on his regime for the rigged presidential election in 2020 and subsequent violent crackdown on critics and demonstrators.

The state of emergency means “a ban on staying in designated places, facilities and areas at specific times” and includes a ban on gatherings.

The provisions also might mean activists that have been present in the border areas offering food and first aid to migrants and documenting pushbacks by the Polish authorities could be denied access.

Two further provisions may limit the right of journalists to investigate the situation at the border. The decree includes “a prohibition of recording by technical means the appearance or other features of specific places, objects or areas”.

It further envisages “limiting access to public information on activities carried out in the area covered by the state of emergency”.

All the BIRN’s coverage of the border situation, for example, has been done from locations within three kilometres of the border with Belarus.

According to the Polish Prime Minister, around 700 migrants have now been apprehended and taken to refugee centres while others “have been prevented” from entering Poland.

Human rights lawyers and opposition parliamentarians, among others, say Poland has been conducting pushbacks throughout August, a claim supported by numerous migrant statements, including those interviewed by BIRN.

NGOs and lawyers on the ground had started documenting individual cases of pushbacks, which are illegal under international law.

The decree, which is already in force, can still be challenged by the Polish parliament.

Twitter Labels Numerous Media Accounts in Serbia ‘State Affiliated’

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Twitter has started to label accounts belonging to various pro-government media in Serbia as state-affiliated media.

Among those it deems affiliated with Serbia’s government are the dailies Srpski Telegraf, Kurir, Informer, Politika, and three free-to-air channels – Happy, Prva TV and B92, RTV Pink’s online portal, as well as the news agency Tanjug.

The label appears on the profile page of the Twitter account and on the Tweets sent by and shared from these accounts. Labels contain information about the country the account is affiliated with and whether it is operated by a government representative or is a state-affiliated media entity. 

These labels include a small icon of a flag to signal the account’s status as a government account and a podium for state-affiliated media. In the case of state-affiliated media entities, Twitter will not recommend or amplify accounts or their Tweets with these labels to people.

As noted in Twitter’s rules and regulations, Twitter defines state-affiliated media as “outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.”

None of the media affected has yet reacted publicly to the new rule.

Although the media in question are widely perceived as pro-government due to their highly positive reporting on the government and sharp criticism of the opposition, it is not clear what steps Twitter took to determine whether they fit the criteria. BIRN has asked Twitter about the methodology it used but has not received a reply by the time of publication.


The “Serbia state-affiliated media” label is visible on the pro-government media Twitter page. Photo: Screenshot/Twitter.com

Twitter announced it will start labelling state-affiliated accounts in August 2020, and a number of accounts linked to governments across the world have been labelled since then. However, Serbia is the first country in the Balkan region to be added to this list.

Serbia’s public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia, RTS, and Radio Television of Vojvodina, RTV, are among those whose accounts are also labelled state-affiliated. 

Twitter said it draws a distinction between state-affiliated broadcasters and those working more independently like the BBC.

“State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy,” it said.

​​Currently, besides Serbia, labels appear on relevant Twitter accounts from China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

Last year, Twitter deleted 8,558 accounts engaged in “inauthentic coordinated activity” – some 43 million tweets criticising the Serbian opposition, independent media and individuals critical of president Aleksandar Vucic and his Progressive Party rule.

BIRN analysis showed that before it was removed, a network of accounts in the service of Serbia’s ruling Progressive Party found its way into the pages of pro-government tabloids, such as Informer and Kurir, disguised as the “voice of the people”.

Poland Further Restricts Media Freedom, Angers US with Controversial Media Law

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

After a stormy day in the Polish parliament, Law and Justice (PiS) finally managed to scrape enough support late on Wednesday evening to pass a law that will prevent companies outside the European Economic Area from owning television stations in Poland.

The law is seen as a move to further restrict media pluralism in the country and directly targeted at TVN, the largest private television station in the country, owned by the US-based Discovery Inc., whose news coverage has been critical of the governing party. It is also a direct snub to the Biden administration, which responded to the passing of the law with a harsh statement arguing it would harm Poland’s media environment, its investment climate and even relations with its western allies.

On Tuesday, the PiS leadership decided to fire from the government Jaroslaw Gowin, the deputy prime minister and leader of Agreement, one of two junior coalition partners of PiS. Gowin had been a thorn in the side of PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski for some time, blocking presidential elections from happening by post back in 2020 and, more recently, opposing the TVN law and the government’s new signature program, the Polish Deal, designed to help Polish working families and win back waning support for the nationalist-populist government.

Without Gowin’s 13 MPs or even some of them, PiS has lost its thin parliamentary majority, which stood at 235 out of 460 seats.

Nevertheless, the party leadership decided to push ahead with the controversial law on Wednesday. Demonstrations in solidarity with TVN were organised in Warsaw and tens of other Polish towns.

Shenanigans

In a surprise development on Wednesday afternoon, the opposition managed to pass a motion introduced by the chairman of the Polish People’s Party, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, which asked for the TVN law vote to be postponed to September. Five parliamentarians from Gowin’s faction and four from the group of maverick politician Pawel Kukiz backed the opposition on this.

There were cheers from the opposition ranks in the parliament upon the announcement of the vote, as this would have been the first major occasion when PiS was defeated in the lower house on a key bill.

But the day was far from over. In what is no longer an unusual practice for PiS, the party’s lawmakers first called for a break, and then invoked anonymous legal experts to claim the vote had been improper in order to force a repeat of the failed vote. By the evening when the poll was repeated, three MPs from the Kukiz’15 group, including its leader Pawel Kukiz, had switched sides to PiS. Kukiz himself pressed the button while opposition MPs shouted “traitor” at him across the hall.

The opposition-controlled Senate is now expected to reject the TVN bill, which the Sejm can later overrule with an absolute majority. In light of this week’s developments, it seems unclear whether PiS can pull that off in the Sejm.

The US, which is a key military and economic partner for Poland, had been putting pressure on Warsaw to leave TVN alone. In a statement following the vote, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken decried the legislation, saying: “Poland is an important NATO ally that understands the Transatlantic Alliance is based on mutual commitments to shared democratic values and prosperity. These pieces of legislation run counter to the principle and values for which modern, democratic nations stand.”

Albanian Police Filmed Mistreating TV News Journalists

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Albanian police on Tuesday manhandled Ergjys Gjencaj, a journalist for the News 24 TV channel, and pushed his colleague Klodiana Lala after failing to detain a suspected criminal.

The incident was caught on camera, and afterwards Interior Minister Bledi Cuci told BIRN that he will order an investigation, while the Office of Tirana Circuit Prosecution said it will check the police’s conduct.

Several videos taken at the scene show several plainclothes police officers stopping the car of their suspect, who then refuses to unlock the doors.

A News 24 car with the TV channel’s logos on all sides then arrives at the scene and journalists Gjencaj and Lala get out.

Gjencaj starts filming using his mobile phone as the suspect runs away. After failing to arrest the suspect, several officers turn on the journalists.

One of them is seen grabbing the phone of Gjencaj, who is made to lie face down on the ground. As Lala starts protesting, a person in civilian clothes who is believed to be a police officer pushes her away.

Gjencaj told BIRN that police kept him face down for several minutes and checked his pockets.

“I have worked as journalist covering the police for the last 20 years. This is the first time that such thing happened to me,” Gjencaj told BIRN.

Lala, a known crime reporter, said that they both just happened to be on the scene when the attempted arrest took place.

“I cried out that they were stopping a journalist,” Lala said, emphasising that the officers could not have missed the logos of the news channel on their car.

In a statement, the prosecution promised “in-depth verifications of the incident”.


Journalist Ergys Gjencaj lying on the ground during the incident. Photo: Balkanweb.com

State Police director Ardi Veliu didn’t respond to BIRN’s request for a comment by the time of publication.

The Albania Media Council alleged that what happened “can hardly be an isolated incident”

“Unable to respond to crime, they orient the violence towards the reporters,” it said.

The Union of Albanian Journalists, a rights group based in Tirana, said it was “a grave incident” and called for the perpetrators to be punished.

“We condemn this act of violence and police brutality committed against a reporter,” the Union wrote on its Facebook page.

There had been several cases of police violence against reporters in the last several years while concerns had been raised due to lack of punishment for officers involved.

In 2019, police in Dibra mistreated Enver Doci, a News 24 reporter who happened to be at the scene of an operation.

Police acknowledged the incident and apologised following a local and international outcry but the officers responsible faced no consequences.

Police faced further criticism last December when two journalists, Xhoi Malesia and Qamil Chani were violently stopped in two separate incidents while reporting during clashes between police and young protesters.

Calls by Albanian rights groups to Prime Minister Edi Rama and State Police director Veliu to condemn the violence against media workers received no response.

Germany Probes Alleged ‘Execution List’ of Turkish Journalists

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Deutsche Welle Turkish reported on Tuesday that the German Federal Interior Ministry said that it will continue to examine the possible existence of an alleged ‘execution list’ targeting Turkish journalists who have been critical of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his government.

“The investigation will be deepened,” Helmut Teichmann, undersecretary at German Federal Interior Ministry, said in response to a German MP’s questions in the Bundestag, according to Deutsche Welle Turkish.

There have been increasing numbers of attacks by unknown assailants on Turkish independent journalists in recent months in Germany and other European countries.

Most recently, Turkish dissident journalist Erk Acarer was attacked in front of his house in Berlin and hospitalised on July 7.

Acarer said on Twitter that he knew the attackers and that they told him to cease his journalistic activities.

German police also warned Celal Baslangic, the editor-in-chief of Arti Tv and Arti Gercek, an independent media outlet headquartered in Cologne, that he is at risk of assassination.

Baslangic said that two police officers visited him at his house and confirmed the existence of an “assassination list” of journalistic critics of Turkish strongman Erdogan.

The German Federation of Journalists, DJV also said that according to its sources inside the German police, there is an execution list targeting 55 Turkish journalists.

“There are a series of threats and attacks against exiled journalists from Turkey living in Germany,” DJV chair Frank Uberall said in a written statement on Saturday.

He urged German Foreign Minister to summon Turkey’s envoy in Berlin and “make it unmistakably clear to the ambassador that these were unacceptable crimes”.

There has been no official response to the allegations from Turkey so far.

Germany has become home to many critical Turkish journalists since Erdogan intensified his crackdown on his opponents in the wake of a failed coup attempt in 2016.

Several Turkish media outlets also moved to Germany to continue their operations and avoid pressure.

Since the failed coup attempt in 2016, the Turkish government has closed or seized 204 media institutions.

According to watchdog organisation Reporters Without Borders, more than 200 journalists and media workers have been imprisoned in Turkey in the past five years.

Turkey continues to be one of the world’s leading jailers of journalists and listed as ‘not free’ by US-based watchdog Freedom House.

Turkish President’s Aide Hails Curbs on Independent Media Funding

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Fahrettin Altun, President of Communications at the Turkish Presidency, has welcomed a new regulation on independent media funding from abroad, for halting foreign influences.

“It is obvious that there is a need to regulate media organisations which operate with funds from foreign state and institutions,” Altun told Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.

He added that the government will not allow any fifth-column activity under new guises.

“In an environment where some foreign leaders openly express their intentions and efforts to design Turkish politics, we cannot interpret that any foreign state or institution provides various funds to the media sector independently from the interests and goals in question,” Altun said. He added that the new regulation will be completed as soon as possible, to “protect public order and the people’s rights”.

The funding of independent media in Turkey came under the spotlight recently after it was shared that an American NGO, via various projects, was funding Medya Scope, one of the few remaining independent media outlets in the country, led by the veteran journalist Rusen Cakir.

As part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s crackdown on critics, ownership of media outlets has dramatically changed over the last decade, and pressure on remaining independent media houses has intensified.

In 2018, Dogan Media Group, which was the largest mainstream media house in the country, owning several news agencies, TV channels, newspapers and magazines, was sold to Demiroren Holding, which is close to Erdogan’s government.

According to Reporters Without Borders, 90 per cent of Turkish media have now fallen under the direct control of the Turkish government.

Remaining independent media suffer strong government pressure, as well as fines and advertisement bans.

Under these circumstances, funding media institutions via projects has become one of the most important sources of income for many media organisations.

Turkish branches of international media houses have meantime increased their coverage of the country and have hired some of the independent journalists who lost their jobs because of government takeovers and other pressures.

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