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Insults, Leaks and Fraud: Digital Violations Thrive amid Pandemic

Posted on June 3, 2020January 26, 2023 by Ivana Jeremic

From January 26 to May 26, BIRN collected information about 163 cases of breaches of digital rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia.

Sixty-eight of the cases related to the manipulation in digital environment, while 25 related to publishing falsehoods and unverified information with the intention to damage someone’s reputation.

BIRN’s monitoring of digital rights, developed together with the SHARE Foundation, has shown that ordinary people were the most affected by such violations, with members of the public being the target in 126 of the cases.

State institutions or state officials violated digital rights in a total of 37 cases, meanwhile.

States rarely addressed the abuses arising from these violations, and in 45 cases, the perpetrators were not identified, while 139 of the total of 163 cases were not resolved.

Eight cases were the result of pressure related to the publication of information, 12 were linked to insults and unfounded accusations and 11 were hate speech and discrimination.

Medical and personal data breaches featured in 18 cases, computer fraud was registered on 11 occasions, while the destruction and theft of data and programs happened in three cases.

Beyond the countries listed above, BIRN noticed an unprecedented rise of digital violations in Montenegro and Turkey, where there were arbitrary arrests and data breaches.

Hackers, data breaches and illegal processing

Infografic: BIRN

Leaked documents, fake websites and the publication of people’s personal and health data have been commonplaces during the ongoing pandemic, but the scale and consequences of the breaches and of the illegal processing of data has yet to be established.

Speculation about the number and identity of COVID-19-infected people led to the mass exposure of personal and private data on social media and messaging platforms. In some cases, the leaks were small in terms of data, but had potentially serious consequences, particularly in situations in which patients’ personal data was revealed.

The most serious cases were reported in Croatia, North Macedonia and Montenegro.

In March in Croatia, a message containing a list of infected patients was shared among people living on the island of Murter, mostly through messaging apps.

Illegal personal data processing and privacy breaches took place in North Macedonia as well. The country’s Agency for Personal Data Protection filed criminal charges against an unknown person for publishing the personal data of people living in the town of Kumanovo.

The public in Serbia became concerned when it was discovered that the login credentials for Serbia’s information system for analysis and storage of health data during the pandemic were publicly available on a health institution website for eight days.

Citizens of Montenegro suffered most from stigmatisation due to a number of leaks of COVID-19 patients’ records. The infected patients’ identities were revealed in posts on social media, sparking hate speech against them.

Individuals who were violated self-isolation measures were also targeted, and often, it was governments that were revealing their personal information.

In Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, authorities launched a website on which they published the names of people who did not follow the entity’s self-isolation measures. The list can still be found online.

As a measure against the spread of the coronavirus, Montenegro’s government published a list of individuals who were put in self-isolation after returning home from abroad. The lists, structured by municipalities, include the individuals’ names, surnames, the date when they were put into isolation, and their home addresses. The list was only removed a month after it was published.

People were also targeted by hacker attacks and fraudulent messages or emails, usually trying to collect their personal information or request payments to foreign banks or crypto-currency accounts, as cybercriminals took advantage of the public concerns and confusion created by the pandemic.

Scams, phishing campaigns and cyber-attacks exploiting people’s fear of COVID-19 were most common in Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, North Macedonia and Romania. The Romanian cybersecurity giant Bitdefender said in March that such attempts at fraud “have risen by 475 per cent in March as compared to the previous month”, and were expected to keep increasing.

Threats, hate speech and discrimination

Infographic: BIRN

While some countries limited the scope of the freedom of speech during the pandemic, some people used their online freedom to unleash threats, insults, discriminatory posts and hate campaigns.

BIRN’s overview looked at several categories of violations:

Hate speech and discrimination
Threatening content and the endangerment of security
Insults and unfounded accusations
Falsehoods and unverified information directed towards the damaging of reputations

In total, more than 15 per cent of all the cases that were monitored included one of these violations. The largest number –

This type of online behaviour was often combined with the use of fake accounts and the paid promotion of false content.

The people most commonly affected by the digital violations that were monitored were journalists, medical professionals and people in quarantine.

Discriminatory posts and acts were directed mostly towards refugees, Chinese and Jewish people, women and the Roma community, with the largest number of such cases occurring in Hungary.

Gender-based discrimination was reported in Serbia, where the victims were predominantly politically-engaged individuals and journalists who criticise the government.

Threats and calls for violence against the police in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were found on Facebook. In both cases, authorities reacted promptly and perpetrators were identified and detained. In North Macedonia two police officers were fined for having taunted and offended people on social networks.

Violations related to damaging reputation predominantly affected governments’ political opponents, independent media and journalists.

Serbia was the country with the largest number of posts aimed at damaging the reputation of independent journalists. In three of four cases of publishing falsehoods, the journalists who were targeted were women.

Journalists were also targeted in North Macedonia and Hungary.

Pressure and arrests for publishing information

Infographic: BIRN

Due to the highly controlled media landscape and poor level of media literacy in the countries that were monitored, the public was overwhelmed with contradictory information and had much more difficulty in recognising false and misleading information during the pandemic than usual. At the same time, the public’s need for timely and proper information had never been bigger.

While the flow of information continued to grow immensely, states started to arrest citizens for posts on social media over the accusation they caused panic and unrest. Some countries imposed authoritarian regulations that limited the flow of information.

Members of the public, media representatives and politicians were arrested and fined for their writings on social media, often without any clear criteria. Journalists were arrested in Serbia, Kosovo and Turkey.

Arrests and fines have become one of the main tactics to counter fake news and violations of restrictions imposed by all governments in the states that were monitored. In Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia and North Macedonia, top state officials warned the public that they faced immediate sanctions for spreading fake news amid the pandemic.

From conspiracy theories to false measures

Illustration: BIRN

Out of 163 cases, the largest number, 68, were linked with the misuse or manipulation of information. They mostly concerned different fake news, the use of false identities online, the sharing of conspiracy theories, or posts classified by the authorities as causing panic and disorder.

Some of the topics that were misused in this way included:

Medicines that can cure the coronavirus, vaccines and laboratory tests
Disinfection procedures
Tips and advices on how to cure the coronavirus
The number of infected people
Information about infected people
Information on medical institutions and their work
The start of the virus and how it developed
State measures and actions that have never been declared nor taken
Supermarkets and food shortages
5G
Other conspiracy theories
Online education and information relevant for students
Offensive posts and videos about quarantined citizens and about people who arrived from a foreign country
Disturbing announcements about the COVID-19 outbreak

In some countries, such as Serbia and Hungary, levels of media freedom are low, with mainstream media often spreading disinformation, while independent media are called fabricators of lies by the authorities.

Nearly 25 per cent of all cases of the misuse or manipulation of information were resolved in some way. The outcomes included:

Website or content removal by the state
A request for the removal of the problematic post
Detention or arrest of a person
Official statement about the incident or a public apology

In Romania, most cases in this category ended in content removal. In Serbia, Hungary and Croatia, arrest was the most common outcome.

Manipulated information, conspiracy theories and unfounded claims emerged en masse on social media platforms and news website when most of the countries introduced emergency measures.

Disinformation was most intensively distributed via YouTube, where content blamed the expansion of 5G technology for the COVID-19 outbreak, or blamed multinational companies or foreign governments for the pandemic. In Croatia, one person even destroyed WiFi equipment, thinking it was 5G infrastructure. Mentions of the alleged influence of 5G networks on the pandemic was noted in Romania and Serbia, both on news websites and on social media.

News websites in Serbia, Romania, Hungary and Croatia often published manipulative content that included false information.

April was the month with the largest number of cases reported in this category. Some 30 out of the total 68 cases of manipulations in the digital environment were registered that month.

Information circulating in April and May, which was manipulated or false, mainly referred to the curfew, the number of COVID-19 patients and tests, students’ exams, people in quarantined, 5G transmitters, enforced microchipping and the funding of religious communities. In almost all cases from this category, members of the public were ones affected.

The rise of ‘unknown’ attackers

Illustration: BIRN

In comparison to the cases of online violations reported before the COVID-19 outbreak, BIRN’s monitoring noted a significant rise in cases in which the perpetrators cannot be identified. The number of these cases increased tenfold on a monthly basis.

These unknown perpetrators have been creating Facebook pages, using the virus situation to persecute independent journalists and others, send fraudulent messages in order to destroy computer software systems or steal money, and creating fake website accounts to spread conspiracy theories or medical disinformation.

Unknown perpetrators have also been responsible for computer frauds, the destruction and theft of data and for making content unavailable using technical skills. Hungary had the most cases involving unknown perpetrators, mainly related to computer fraud.

Cases have also shown how states can be violators of digital rights and freedoms. The increased number of cases which ended in arrest or detention revealed the tendency of states to use more power than was necessary, particularly to arrest journalists and citizens for posts on social media.

From having double standards when it comes to reactions to fake news to using their authority to silence people, governments often acted against the interests of their own citizens. According to the monitoring findings, in almost 25 per cent of all cases, the state itself or a state official was described as the perpetrator of a violation of certain guaranteed rights or freedoms.

On the other hand, members of the public were the victims of violations in 126 cases.

Media regulations across the region have been tightened under states of emergency and journalists have been arrested on accusation of spreading misinformation about authorities’ responses to the spread of the coronavirus. Some countries, like Serbia, sought to centralise the dissemination of official information and banned certain media from regular briefings.

The first worrying legal initiative was noted in Croatia, where the government proposed a change to the Electronic Communications Act under which, in extraordinary situations, the health minister would ask telecommunications companies to provide data on the locations of users’ terminals. The legislative change is currently pending.

In Hungary, the Bill on Protection Against Coronavirus, giving the government almost total control of the flow of information about the pandemic, was adopted at the end of March. The Hungarian government also decided to limit the application of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, and to extend the deadline for public institutions to provide data requested via freedom of information regulations from 15 to 45 days.

Romanian civil society organisations also drew attention to a lack of official transparency and the possibility of media freedoms being curbed by state-of-emergency provisions. Provisions enacted as part of the state of emergency to combat the spread of the coronavirus allowed the authorities to shut down websites that publish fake news and exempted the authorities from answering urgent inquiries from journalists. Access to a dozen websites has been blocked since then.

In North Macedonia, the media faced new procedures for the issue of work permits during coronavirus curfews. The government insisted that its pandemic measures would not affect the public’s right to information, but in practice, institutions were less responsive to freedom of information requests.

In general, there was a trend among many countries to suspend freedom of information requests.

Digital rights, and rights to privacy and freedom of expression on the internet have all faced serious limitations and breaches in South-East and Central Europe. In the semi-democracies of the region, dominated by regimes with elements of authoritarianism, there is legitimate concern about disproportionate interference in citizens’ personal data and concern that recently-imposed measures are not properly tailored to achieve their objectives while causing the least possible damage to guaranteed rights.

Many people’s lives during this period have completely shifted to the online world, where harmful behaviour usually remains unnoticed by authorities preoccupied by offline violations.

During BIRN’s monitoring period, the lack of a human rights-based approach towards people in the digital environment led to discrimination, hate speech and threats. Although protection of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms should be guaranteed on the internet in the same way as it is offline, in practice we have seen an increase in the number of cases of online violations. The forms that those violations take have been evolving as well.

A lack of knowledge and understanding of the online space, and the subsequent lack of internet governance have opened a Pandora’s Box, allowing various state institutions to arbitrarily, partially and unequally interpret people’s online behaviour.

The intense nature of the battle for control of the narrative about the coronavirus has made meaningful oversight of online life and practices, and establishing accountability for online actions, harder than ever.

To read the detailed overview of our digital rights monitoring click here. For individual cases, check our regional database, developed together with the SHARE Foundation.

Hackers Expose Gaping Holes in North Macedonia’s IT Systems

Posted on May 22, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

North Macedonia’s officials are trying to persuade the country that after hackers recently leaked dozens of email addresses and passwords from staffers in public institutions, the situation is under control.

But, as they did so, some of the key pages of Skopje’s main local government’s website could not be reached since Thursday – in what looked like yet another serious breach of cyber-security.

Some pages on Skopje city’s official website, including the one about taxes, are currently marked not secure for use due to an “expired security certificate” – which experts said could lead to another breach of data privacy.

Web browsers such as Mozila and Google Chrome blocked access to some of the pages on the skopje.gov.mk website, meaning that the system could either be vulnerable to a hacker attack, or that the website’s users could be vulnerable to a “man-in-the-middle attack”, or MITM.

This is when attackers secretly alter communications between two sides and steal key information, such as passwords, messages or credit card numbers.

The latest security breach came after a Greek hacking group, called “Powerful Greek Army” leaked dozens of email addresses and passwords from staffers in the North Macedonia’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, as well as from the municipality of Strumica – and bragged about their exploits on Twitter on May 10.

When and how the hackers got into these systems is still unclear, but both the North Macedonia’s Interior Ministry in charge of cyber-crime and the Greek authorities promised a swift joint investigation.

Recently, the Powerful Greek Army hacker group also took down the website of the Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research at the country’s main Sts Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje.

Over the past few years, the government has promised to take action following a series of sophisticated and coordinated IT security breaches and hacker attacks on websites containing citizens’ data.

But some consider the country’s current response to cyber threats far too weak.

Speaking about the latest May 10 attack, the authorities shrugged off the threat, insisting that the hacked email accounts could not be accessed with the leaked passwords or with any other data sets. The data obtained by the hackers was more than seven years old, dating from 2013, they added.

“We have no evidence that the current email systems of those institutions have been hacked lately, and we are investigating all the details related to this case,” the government said in an upbeat statement.

It added that official email systems had been updated since 2013, and that protocols with complex passwords for official email addresses have been set, as well as other cybersecurity protocols in the systems that should reduce the risk of systems being compromised.

However, experts warn that although some steps have been taken, they are far from meeting the criteria that are needed. They say the latest incident should be seen as a warning about the kind of cybersecurity practices now being used in the country.

Experts say too many old operating systems are still being used, leaving state institutions vulnerable to hackers attacks, while staffers in these institutions lack proper training on security protocols.

A study in 2018 by the Ponemon Institute, which conducts independent research into data protection, looking at the cost of data breaches, said an average public-sector data breach could cost up to 2 million euros.

Government data breaches are meanwhile two-and-a-half times more likely to remain undetected for a year or more than those in the private sector, said a report by The Daily Swig, which focuses on bugs, viruses and data security issues.

In 2018, the then North Macedonia’s government adopted a national strategy and an action plan on cyber-security, but little has been done since.

In recent years, there have been other examples of poor protection of state institutions. Last year, a former member of parliament was arrested for hacking into the Central Registry.

In 2015, the Ministry of Information Society and Administration and the State Prosecution Office were among several institutions targeted by a hacker group, believed to have ties with jihadist groups in the Middle East.

Outdated operating systems are big concern

Photo: Screenshot

One of the major problems for North Macedonia’s IT systems is that most of the operating systems are outdated, and so are more vulnerable to attacks.

“The security of IT systems in the country most often does not meet the necessary standards,” Milan Popov, a Skopje-based cyber-security engineer with years of experience of IT security in the public sector, told BIRN.

“Old operating systems are still being used, websites often do not use security certificates, and weak passwords are used to log into systems,” he added.

“For example, many state institutions are still using the Windows XP system, known for its security vulnerabilities. All this leads to a great danger of compromising systems and potentially extracting sensitive data from users,” Popov continued.

The government adopted a national strategy and an action plan for cyber-security for the period of 2018-2022 in July 2018. The strategy aimed to define the critical infrastructure, and the role of each institution regarding cybersecurity efforts as a whole.

In 2019, it also formed a National Council for Cyber-security, comprising the ministers of Interior, Defence and Information Society. Although it was two years in the making, the council has held only one meeting so far, in January this year, when it held a constitutive session.

Regarding its goals, the council has stated that it will aim to implement the recommendations and cybersecurity practices of fellow NATO-member countries.

Strong and resilient cyber-defences are part of NATO’s core tasks of collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security.

One of NATO’s main objectives is strengthening its members’ capabilities in cyber-education, training and exercises. Member countries are also committed to enhancing information-sharing and mutual assistance in preventing, mitigating and recovering from cyber attacks.

According to the government budget for 2020, the country is investing just over 6 million euros in institutional IT support, from a projected budget of 71.6 million euros. The same amount was spent on IT support in 2019.

Staff need more education in IT security

Illustration. Photo: Unsplash

The email list published by the Powerful Greek Army hackers was concerning also as the employees of the Ministry of Economy and Finance might have used the same passwords for other accounts.

The attack aimed to reveal just how weak the system’s IT protection was. The hackers also promised a return visit. On their Twitter profile they wrote that they would “not stop attacking Skopje”.

The leaked lists contained examples of worryingly weak passwords. According to cyber-security experts, this alone was a cause of concern when it comes to the security of the administrative systems and the data of employees.

“Some of the security concerns here include passwords leaks, plaintext passwords, passwords that contain a part of the last name, are only in letters or only in numbers, are shorter than eight characters, and are without special characters,” Martin Spasovski, a Skopje-based software engineer, told BIRN.

Some of the methods that hackers use to steal passwords are phishing, password spraying, or keylogging. When it comes to passwords, he said users should always pay attention to password strength. In most cases, a strong password policy can make a difference in preventing such attacks.

To prevent more such incidents, state institutions have to educate IT staff more about the various challenges that hacking threats pose, experts note. “Protection requires a serious investment of hardware and software, but the most crucial need is to educate the IT staff on how to use all of this,” Popov emphasized.

“It’s also extremely important to educate non-IT staff on how to recognize various hazards such as social engineering, malicious websites, or working with sensitive data.”

A study conducted by international cybersecurity scholars in 2018 reached similar conclusions about the importance of training.

“Within public institutions, training in cybersecurity issues both for IT staff and general staff is very limited, and it is often at the discretion of management whether a member of staff is permitted to attend a general cybersecurity training or certification course,” it noted.

The Defence Ministry, one of the main components of the cyber-security critical infrastructure, says it regularly conducts cyber-security training for its employees.

“During 2019, 10 trainings on raising cyber-security awareness were conducted, in which 152 ministry employees participated. The Army also conducted training that covered over 1,200 members,” the Defence Ministry told BIRN in a statement.

For 2020, the Defence Ministry planned to conduct training for 150 employees that was supposed to start in April, but had to delay them because of the pandemic measures.

“Securing the cyberspace, being of utmost importance to all organizations involved in the digital world in any aspect, is the main focus of the Cybersecurity Specialist Academic Track – part of the Computer Networks Academy at SEDC”, Toni Todorov, senior DevOps engineer with SEDC, one of the country’s biggest computer education centres, told BIRN.

“Governments across Europe are heavily investing (and will invest even more) time and resources in raising awareness and remediating the threat to the security of their citizens, especially the digital kind,” Todorov added.

North Macedonia’s State of Emergency Weakens Institutions’ Transparency

Posted on April 24, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Citing health crises and states of emergency, some Balkan countries have used the situation to restrict the right to information and media freedom.

While authorities in North Macedonia have imposed no such curbs, some restrictions in access to information have still appeared by themselves.

This is mainly because many public-sector workers now work at home, while those who remain in offices cannot always respond to information requests in the timeframe prescribed by law.

Some public institutions also say that, owing to staff shortages, they simply cannot obtain the information that citizens, journalists, NGOs and others want.

Both the institutions and those requesting information say that for now, problems are often solved in mutual agreements that allow for a delay of a few days, enabling institutions to cope.

North Macedonia’s law on freedom of access to public information does not envisage what should happen to such rights in extraordinary situations like this one.

Some of those seeking information are worried that some institutions may say that the deadlines to respond to FOIA requests should be frozen in the pandemic, and should only start to expire after the state of emergency is over. So far, no testimonies suggest that this has actually happened, however.

Delays instead of rejections

North Macedonia’s central bank. Photo: BIRN

North Macedonia passed a new FOIA act in 2019, which cut the deadlines for institutions to provide access to information from 30 to 20 days.

The law came into full force at the start of this year, once the team at the Agency for Protection of the Right of Information, which is responsible for complaints when institutions fail to do their duties, was fully formed.

The government insists that although it has a right under the state of emergency to pass decrees with the force of a law, it has no plan to restrict access to information.

“We won’t make changes. Transparency and access to public information are particularly important in this state of emergency,” Justice Minister Renata Deskoska told BIRN.

Despite that, institutions offer plentiful reasons why they can’t provide anwers on time.

These range from claims that the staff responsible for the information are working from home, are at home parenting a small child or are taking days off.

The Center for Civil Communication, CCC, an NGO, is preparing its index on transparency of institutions at the zenith of the pandemic.

CCA head German Filkov told BIRN that although it sent FOIA requests to all ministries and municipalities asking them to provide the number of their employees, just before the deadline to answer expired, it received such data from only 29 per cent of them. All the others said they would be late.

“They told us that that the people who should provide the info are not at work because of the pandemic,” he said.

“Not the people in charge of access to information but those from the appropriate sector, in our case, the sectors for human resources. They did not say that they won’t respond but that they cannot meet the deadline,” Filkov added.

Justice Minister Deskoska said such excuses are unacceptable and the law should be respected despite the state of emergency. “Institutions must organize themselves and deliver the data via mail or in other ways,” she said.

No official change in practice

Skopje’s health emergency centre. Photo: BIRN

Some NGO’s are worried that a government provision on the Law on Public and Administrative Procedures, passed on March 23, might also delay the deadlines for providing information.

This provision says that that all deadlines for administrative procedures are frozen during the state of emergency, and will only resume once normality is restored – for the same amount of days that they have been frozen.

This provision refers to services that the government, ministries, agencies, directorates and other institutions provide to citizens, companies and other subjects, such as issuing permits and delivering decisions.

However, during the debates at different institutions on how to interpret this provision, some proposed restricting the right to access to public information as well. The Interior Ministry has considered this, though not put it into practice.

“We talked to colleagues, and despite some opinions that deadlines could be postponed in accordance with the government’s provision … we decided not to stop answering FOIA requests,” Interior Ministry spokesperson Toni Angelovski told BIRN.

“The conditions are harder because the persons with certain information are not always present at work, but, despite that, we manage to reply on requests on time,” he added.

Although other institutions have also had divided opinions on this, no ministry or lower ranking institution has yet said on its web page that it is changing its practice of answering FOIA requests.

Everything remains the same as before the crisis, and the institutions still display the public info they hold, the legal provisions on how to get it and the contacts of the persons in charge.

Mirce Kotevski, who handles these procedures in the state electricity producing company, ESM, said they never reject information requests. “Some requests are complicated and demand the coordination of several sectors,” he said.

“It all takes time in normal conditions, and even more in these conditions,” he added.

“People are not always here to provide the info. We try to respect the deadlines, but in some cases, if that is objectively impossible, we ask for, and get, understanding from those who file requests for a few days’ postponement. But we never reject requests.”

Deadlines in courts are postponed

North Macedonia’s Parliament. Photo: BIRN

But if something goes wrong and an institution refuses to answer a FOIA request, and again rejects the complaint, there will be a problem. This is because the deadlines in courts have been put on hold.

In normal circumstances, the person or body that requested the information could submit a complaint to the administrative court.

Now, however, courts, including the administrative court, won’t start procedures until the state of emergency ends. Under the government provision, they are instructed to act only on high priority cases.

In reality, this tool has not been particularly useful to complainants, even in normal times, as the procedures in these cases often lasted years.

For the media and journalists, the work of the Agency for Protection of the Right of Information is more crucial, and this agency says that it is still working without delays, and has not seen any increase in the volume of complaints.

“There is no significant difference. The law envisages that institutions can request postponement of deadlines from 20 to 30 days if they need to provide more cumbersome information that takes time to collect. But the law does not envisage how to act in a state of emergency,” the head of the Agency, Plamenka Bojceva, said.

Little evidence of “active” transparency

While most institutions are trying to answer requests and maintain at least so-called “passive” transparency, some give an impression of not engaging equally in so-called “active” transparency, which means publishing information requested by law on their own, without being asked.

Some of the most important items of information of this kind are public procurement contracts.

The crisis has imposed the need of swift procurements, especially for medical institutions. Institutions don’t need an opinion from the State Public Procurements Bureau on these, but they are still obliged by law to disclose all the data on their own once they finish the procurements.

This is not the case, however. The CCC, in a recent analysis, said that by April 5, institutions had published only 17 announcements for public procurement contracts, and had notified the public that they had chosen the best bidder in only 12 instances.

According to the NGO, this raises questions about whether institutions are truly respecting their obligation to publish such information.

Even those contracts that have been published are often missing crucial details. For example, the contracts for the procurement of masks and gloves were published without detailed information about anything else, making it impossible to determine whether the price paid was justifiable.

In its second analysis on this subject, published on April 22, covering the period from the beginning of March to April 20, the NGO said things hadn’t changed much. All five contracts were missing quantity details.

CCC warns that the state of emergency, and the general shortage of needed products, are increasing the risks of corruption, because if public procurements procedures are not transparent, suppliers may use this situation to increase their prices.

Its analyses conclude that, in this time of crisis, because it is practically the only source of info, in the absence of the usual calls and tendering documentation the publication of all the data on contracts is even more important.

Some Balkan States Waging ‘Crusade’ Against Media, Report Warns

Posted on April 21, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Media freedom in Turkey, Bulgaria and Montenegro is the worst in the region, according to the 2020 World Press Freedom Index, published on Tuesday by Reporters Without Borders – but other Balkan countries have largely failed to improve.

“In southern Europe, a crusade by the authorities against the media is very active,” the report warns.

Turkey holds 154th place out of 180 countries worldwide in Reporters Without Borders’ media freedom rankings.

“Turkey is more authoritarian than ever,” the report says, noting an increase in media censorship, particularly of online outlets, despite the release of a number of imprisoned journalists.

Bulgaria is ranked in 111th place, and the report notes that despite international pressure, public radio management suspended experienced journalist Silvia Velikova, a government critic.

This highlighted the lack of independence of Bulgaria’s public broadcasting media and the hold some political leaders have over their editorial policy.

In Montenegro, which is ranked 105th, the report notes no progress, adding that authorities favour pro-government outlets while exercising pressure against other media outlets and journalists.

“In May 2018, investigative journalist Olivera Lakic was shot in the leg. Like in many previous physical attacks on journalists, Lakic’s case is still unsolved,” the report adds. It also mentioned the recent arrests of three journalists on suspicion of causing panic and disorder by publishing fake news.

Serbia is ranked in 93rd place. “After six years under the leadership of Aleksandar Vucic… Serbia has become a country where it is often dangerous to be a journalist and where fake news is gaining in visibility and popularity at an alarming rate,” the report notes.

It says that the number of verbal attacks by politicians on media has risen sharply, and that officials increasingly use inflammatory rhetoric against journalists.

It adds that the assailants who set fire to the house of investigative journalist Milan Jovanovic have yet to be convicted.

North Macedonia is ranked in 92nd place, an improvement on last year, which the report mostly attributes to the attempts for better self-regulation and the publishing of a register of professional online media.

But it also notes that municipal authorities are still able to place advertisements, which remains a tool for financial pressure on media outlets, and that the ruling party, the Social Democrats, have advertised their government’s achievements.

Moldova retains 91st position and the report notes an “extremely polarised” media landscape, with continuing concerns about ownership.

“The media empire built by former billionaire and Democratic Party boss Vladimir Plahotniuc has lost its influence but has been quickly replaced by a media group affiliated to the Democratic Party’s rival, the pro-Russian Party of Socialists,” the report says.

Albania is ranked 84th in the world, down two places from last year, a result of recently-adopted laws against defamation and tightened regulation of online media which could result in censorship and make journalists more vulnerable to government pressures.

Kosovo is ranked 70th by Reporters Without Borders, with the report noting that media in the country remains divided among ethnic lines, and that many outlets are not financially stable.

“Some of the shared concerns are physical and verbal attacks on journalists, cyber-attacks on online media as well as the lack of transparency of media ownership,” the report says.

Greece’s place in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, 65th, remains unchanged this year.

Croatia moves up five places and is now ranked 59th, but the report notes that the government is still meddling in the affairs of the national broadcaster, HRT, the defamation is still criminalised and that investigative journalists are often the targets of harassment campaigns.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is ranked 58th, also scoring a five-point rise. The report says the further collapse of public service broadcasters in the country is one of the main weaknesses, along with the polarised political climate, marked by constant verbal attacks and nationalist rhetoric, which “has created a hostile environment for press freedom”.

Romania is ranked 48th in the global index – the best position of all Balkan countries – but the report highlights some continuing shortcomings.

“The attitude towards journalism and free speech that prevails within the state and the political class continues to encourage censorship and self-censorship,” it says.

“The media’s funding mechanisms are opaque or even corrupt, and editorial policies are subordinated to owner interests. The media have gradually been turned into political propaganda tools and are routinely subjected to surveillance by the security services,” it adds.

The report marks Norway, Finland and Denmark as the three best countries in the world for press freedom, while Eritrea, Turkmenistan and North Korea are at the bottom of the list of 180 countries.

Reporters Without Borders says the report shows that the decade ahead will be “decisive for the future of journalism, with the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting and amplifying the many crises that threaten the right to freely reported, independent, diverse and reliable information”.

NATO to Help North Macedonia Combat Fake News About Virus

Posted on April 15, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

The US ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, on Tuesday in Washington said North Macedonia, which joined the alliance this year, will receive similar assistance to other member countries in dealing with fake news from Russia, North Macedonia’s state-owned MIA news agency reported.

“The alliance expects more info from Skopje on setting up such a team in North Macedonia, aimed at preparing media in the country on how to deter disinformation campaigns from Russia,” MIA quoted Hutchison as saying.

She added that a lot of fake news was being spread in North Macedonia about the coronavirus and that NATO assistance was needed to deal with it.

The ambassador called on NATO allies to combat disinformation on the coronavirus coming from Russia – and also from China.

“There are false reports that they [Russia and China] are sending assistance, there are false reports that the virus emerged from Europe or the United States. This is absolutely false and we are trying to respond with facts,” she told the press briefing.

Russia has strongly opposed NATO expansion into the Balkan region. Montenegro became the 29^th member state in 2017 despite open opposition from Moscow, and has since been on the receiving end of cyber attacks assumed to come from Russia. For some years it has hosted a team of American cyber experts who are helping the fight against cyber threats.

North Macedonia became NATO’s 30^th member in March this year. Hutchison remarked that the country has been a target of disinformation from Russia ever since it applied for membership, adding that these threats have continued since it joined NATO.

North Macedonia Accused of Dodging Media Scrutiny in Crisis

Posted on April 14, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

After drawing flak from journalistic and media associations for employing an unsuitable register of online media to select which outlets should get permits to work during curfews and ask questions at press conferences, the Information Society Ministry says it had rectified any omissions.

This ministry, which is in charge of issuing these online permits, says media outlets are now being checked directly through the country’s central registry of firms, not through a register of online media created for a different purpose by the country’s oldest and biggest media union.

Amid complaints from the Association of Journalists of Macedonia, ZNM, that the ministry had more or less hijacked its register and misused its purpose, the ministry told BIRN that its only intention had been to prevent the spread of “fake news” in the health crisis.

However, some pro-opposition online media outlets still accuse the authorities of discrimination and “silent” censorship, saying they are put in an unequal position compared to others at virtual press conferences.

Use of media register drew flak

The dispute started in late March, when the ministry issued a statement saying that only those outlets listed on the ZNM’s register of professional online media, Promedia, would be eligible to apply for permits to work during the daily curfews.

The same rule applied to outlets wanting to ask questions at government press conferences, which were already being held without the physical presence of journalists, who were only able to ask direct questions through a video conference call, or submit them online to the government press service and wait for them to be read out by the spokesperson and answered by ministers.

The ZNM and the Council of Ethics in Media, SEMM, a self-regulatory journalistic body, accused the government of using the register to select favoured online media.

The ZNM’s executive director, Dragan Sekulovski, told BIRN that the purpose of Promedia had been misused. The register of some 120 online media outlets “was intended to promote self-regulation and professional standards, help citizens distinguish professional online outlets from propagandists and fake news sites and incentivise businesses to advertise in professional outlets”, Sekulovski explained to BIRN.

“The OSCE, the US embassy and the European Union praised us for our efforts to put some order in the online media sphere. It was not fair of the state to interfere [with it] and use the [health] crisis as an excuse,” he said.

He noted that the register was never intended to be an all-encompassing media source. Media participate in it voluntarily; those who wish to be listed on it first apply and are then their basic professional and ethical standards are checked.

While Promedia lists 120 listed outlets, the state’s central business registry lists more than 400 online media outlets.

The Promedia registry notably does not include many pro-opposition outlets that formerly defended the ex-government of Nikola Gruevski, which fell in mid-2017, and continue to promote the standpoints of his now opposition VMRO DPMNE party.

Most of these are now grouped in the country’s other journalistic union, the Macedonian Association of Journalists, MAN, which was formed during Gruevski’s time in office and has also accused the current Social Democrat-led government of using double standards.

Ministry says it had no ill intent

Journalist, members of North Macedonia’s government and guests in the government press room. Archive photo: EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI

After prolonged silence in the face of this criticism, the State Secretary at the Information Society Ministry, Adem Avziu, told BIRN on Friday that its intention had not been to discriminate against any particular online media but only to “prevent the spread of fake news and panic in this extraordinary situation.

“We all know we have many unregistered portals that are spreading all kinds of false info amid this crisis, so our intent was to prevent this,” Avziu said.

He claimed that any mistakes made earlier had now been fixed. “Control measures have now been significantly boosted. All media now apply and fill in forms on one address, at uslugi.gov.mk, and permits are issued after their data has been checked through the database of the central business registry,” he said.

Opposition outlets still cry foul

The enduring divisions between media in North Macedonia are a legacy of Gruevski’s authoritarian government’s decade-plus in office.

On one side are media that gravitate towards the ZNM, and are trying to restore professional standards and strengthen self-regulation in the media sphere. Some of them are now outlets that defend the Social Democrats-led government.

On the other side are Gruevski’s former megaphones, who received large sums in the form of government advertisements while he was in power and who formed the parallel journalists’ association MAN, which at the time was seeking to overshadow the ZNM. Most of these media have continued to support the VMRO DPMNE party in opposition and attack anyone that the party deems an enemy.

These media were asked to sign the journalistic code of ethics and join the media register created by the ZNM but have not done so.

Kurir is among the most prominent of such online outlets, and managed to survive Gruevski’s downfall in 2017, largely thanks to its recent takeover by Hungarian firms linked to Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s PR machinery, and the subsequent inflow of Hungarian advertisement money.

In 2018, the company Adinamic Media, owned by a Hungarian national called Agnes Adamik, acquired ownership of the Kurir and Republika website and a share of the ownership of the Netpress website.

But despite the ministry’s insistence that it has now fixed the problem with the permits, the editor-in-chief of Kurir, Ljupco Cvetanovski, said that his outlet still feels discriminated against.

Cvetanovski told BIRN that the current form of censorship was “maybe not so evident and public as was first intended with the registry [of online media], but we still feel some form of censorship”.

While conceding that his site no longer encountered any problems with getting permits to work during the curfews, he said the way press conferences are being held did not allow them to ask direct questions through video link, like some other media, while questions submitted electronically often never get answered.

“We submit several questions daily [to the government press service] but only one of our questions has ever been read out at press conferences and answered,” Cvetanovski claimed.

He added that in this way the government was elegantly dodging “tough” questions – or at least giving itself more time to prepare suitable answers in advance.

Continue reading “North Macedonia Accused of Dodging Media Scrutiny in Crisis”

North Macedonia Web Portals Hustle for Election Ads Cash

Posted on March 10, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

The prospect of making a quick buck from budget money intended for election advertising has encouraged a staggering 235 web portals, many with obscure backgrounds and identities, to register at the State Electoral Commission, DIK, for a slice of the pie.

BIRN’s analysis of the DIK list of web portals, published in Macedonian language, reveals that many have questionable professional standards and unclear backgrounds and ownership.

Of the 235 web portals that have registered, 92 do not reveal who the journalists and editors who work there are. Of those 92, effectively hiding their staff teams, 44 publish political news; the rest cover other topics, or have no clear theme.

Most of the portals that did disclose their journalistic teams are run by just one or two persons, it was also noticed. There are also cases where one team of journalists works in several portals.

There is no data about the owners or founders of 19 of the portals that have applied for state cash. They are registered in the United States, Panama, or in other places, by companies that conceal their true owners.

Some 50 of the portals are not even registered with the web domain .mk. Some resemble blogs rather than news sites, and have domains such as .live, .info or just .com.

The April 12 general elections are the second in North Macedonia in which the state budget will cover political party adverts in the media.

North Macedonia introduced this practice for last year’s presidential elections, when 83 portals registered for the cash.

The law allows parties to apply or up to two euros for every voter who voted for them in the last elections. The state plans to reserve about 3.6 million euros for this purpose.

While it is expected that most of this sum will be spent on ads on TV and radio and in newspapers, the rules allow one party or alliance also to spend up to 15,000 euros for promotional purposes in a single portal.

The more portals a publisher registers, the bigger its potential gain.

The head of the State-Anti-Corruption Commission, Biljana Ivanovska, was among the first to warn about the problems arising from these loopholes.

In an interview for BIRN, in Macedonian language, in January, she said only web portals that are already registered with the National Council for the Media, SEMM, should be allowed to register at the DIK list as well.

At the moment, the SEMM register contains 101 web portals that have disclosed ownership and journalistic teams, as well as known price lists. They have also pledged to respect professional and ethical codes.

But when parliament last made changes to the electoral law, last month, it ignored this advice and left the situation as is, meaning that any web portal can be registered without scrutiny.

More than half of all the web portals that have registered for part of the state advertising cash are not on the SEMM list.

Among the analysed data from the current DIK register, BIRN observed other curiosities. In few cases, for example, a single publisher has registered several versions of the same portal.

The publisher Prva Republika [First Republic], for example, has registered its site “Republika” three times, counting Macedonian, Albanian and the English versions of the same site as three separate sites. The web site of TV 21, which airs in Albanian and Macedonian, is similarly registered twice.

The DIK register shows a similar trend in several smaller towns, like Ohrid, Kriva Palanka, Delcevo, Valandovo and others, where the same local publishers have registered more than one web portal.

To maximize potential profits, some of the big national TV stations have also registered their websites separately from their TV stations. Some newspapers and many local radio and TV stations have done the same.

Apart from informative portals, the list also shows that sites that follow sports, lifestyle, and automotive industry have also been registered.

Facebook Extends Political Ads Rules to Balkans Before Elections

Posted on March 7, 2020January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Facebook has added Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Moldova and Turkey to its updated list of countries that must adhere to its strict political advertising transparency regulations.

The enforcement of the new regulations is expected in mid-March, about a month before parliamentary elections in Serbia and North Macedonia, due on April 26 and April 12 respectively. Montenegro is also due to hold the elections this year, by October at the latest.

Facebook launched the regulations in June last year. They mean that any adverts paid for by a political group or candidate must be labelled as such.

With the new 32 countries, the total count of states required to stick to the regulations, which relate to any adverts about social issues, elections or politics, rose to 89.

Apart from the five Balkan countries, the regulations will also expand to Chile, Japan, Mexico and Indonesia, to name a few. Facebook said it was working to expand enforcement to more countries later this year, including Myanmar and Brazil.

“Anyone who wants to run ads about elections or politics in these countries will need to confirm their identity with an ID issued from the country they want to run ads in and disclose who is responsible for the ad.

“We require that the advertiser provide additional information, like a local business address, local phone number, email and website, if they choose to use their organization or Page name in the disclaimer. These requirements hold advertisers accountable for the ads they run on Facebook and Instagram,” the social media giant wrote on its Facebook for Business website.

While political ads will be more transparent, the requirements are also designed to ensure that Facebook can list political advertisers in its Ad Library. Political ads from all of these new regions will now be added to the Ad Library API.

“We will introduce the Ad Library Report for each of these countries by the end of April. The report provides aggregated insights for ads about elections and politics, such as total number of ads and spends in the Ad Library. The report is also available as a downloadable file,” Facebook explained.

Political parties in the Balkans have often used social media in ways that are far from transparent during elections.

At the beginning of 2020, SHARE Foundation, a Serbia-based digital rights NGO, asked Facebook to put Serbia and North Macedonia on the list, citing the upcoming elections as the main reason. In its letter, SHARE said that if these two countries were on the list “the campaign will be more transparent.”

“This is especially important, since it is expected that Facebook pages which are not openly political might engage in supporting a certain political party or candidate with ads,” the letter adds.

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