PRISTINA, 26.02.2021 – The Association of Journalists of Kosovo – AJK, in cooperation with the Council of Europe – Office in Pristina action on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the media (JUFREX2), held a lecture with the law and journalism students on the implementation of the right to freedom of expression in practice.

Participants in this lecture were about 20 students of journalism and law, where lecturers were Flutura Kusari – media  lawyer and Jehona Zhitia –  journalist at Radio Television of Kosovo.

The lecture was focused on topics such as: media freedom, protection of reputation, the whistleblowing, the right to access public documents, the rights and responsibilities of journalists, their safety and protection.

During this lecture for the participants was introduced the way of practicing the profession of journalism in unusual conditions, as in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic. The trainers discussed the challenges that journalists face when reporting in such circumstances, as well as their safety which is put at risk.

This lecture was organized within the JUFREX2 project, funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe. This lecture is a continuation of a series of activities foreseen in the project for journalists, media workers, journalism students and other persons interested in freedom of expression.

PRISTINA, 25.02.2021 – The Association of Journalists of Kosovo – AJK, has accepted with deep concern the news of the physical attack towards the journalist of the online newspaper Insjaderi, Visar Duriqi.

Duriqi was physically attacked by three unknown persons during the last midnight in front of his apartment.

Journalist has stated for the media that he received medical treatment at the University Clinical Center of Kosovo as a result of the physical attack his teeth and nose are broken.

Regarding the case the Kosovo Police has also stated to the media.

“Immediately after receiving the information, the police went to the scene and based on the first hand information, it is suspected that three masked persons attacked the victim at the entrance of his apartment, causing him body injuries. The victim was sent to the hospital, for the necessary medical treatment and then he was discharged from there “, it is said in the police statement.

The Association of Journalists of Kosovo calls upon the competent bodies to investigate the motives of this attack and to shed light over this case, for which is a threat towards free speech and media.

AJK will inform  relevant national and international stakeholders about this case and at the same time we call on all our fellow journalists to report threats and attacks against them.

Each attack on journalists is an attack on free speech and democracy in the country.

SARAJEVO, 23.02.2021 – Investigative journalism is a corrective of the society in which we live, it helps citizens to get information about various corrupt practices, scandals, the connection between crime and politics, and therefore it is necessary to strengthen the capacity of journalists to produce investigative stories, especially in local media. This was highlighted during the workshop on investigative journalism for media workers from local media, as well as for freelance journalists, which was held today in the organization of the BH Journalists Association through the Zoom platform.

Educator Zinaida Đelilović from Žurnal Magazine says that daily journalism is the transmission of information from the source to the audience, while investigative journalism is digging below the surface. “Not every journalist is an investigative journalist, but he can be. It is a person who, regardless of the medium in which he works, is ready to be persistent, to have a team spirit, to have a sense of working with people, a passion for finding the truth and a bit reminiscent of a police detective, only unlike the police the journalist communicates with the public“, believes Đelilović.

When we talk about topics covered by investigative journalists, educator Dragana Erjavec from Radio Free Europe says that this seems like a serious problem to young journalists at the beginning and that at first it seems that there are no good topics for research. “Journalists who have years of experience behind them already have sharpened senses, so they find topics at every step. One of the best sources for stories is data that is available to everyone, it is the news that we read every day, and it hides first-class media sensations“, Erjavec points out, adding that a research story must always have social importance for a large number of people that it is always the work of one or more journalists who have spent a lot of time working on the topic.

Investigative journalists must be well informed, listen to what is happening in the community, ask questions in the right places, and be close to the source of the event or know people who are close to the source of the information. Contacts are very important in this segment, which is a long-term process in which both sources and journalists gain mutual trust.

“When we talk about sources, it is very important to know that the source gives us true information, and our task is to examine the reliability of the data. Trust between journalists and people who provide information can best be defined as a business agreement from which both parties have some benefit“,  says Erjavec.

The investigative process in journalism has several phases, and usually begins with a pre-investigation phase in which the archive of the editorial office is reviewed, colleagues, other media, potential interlocutors are contacted, and available documentation is reviewed.

Zinaida Đelilović points out that if at this stage it turns out that the topic is worth the effort and has a basis for research, further work is being done on collecting documentation, most often by sending requests to institutions for free access to information. “Of course, there are alternative ways of gathering information, but they must always be in accordance with the ethical standards of the profession and their credibility must be checked. After reviewing the documentation, we start interviewing the interlocutor, reject the important from the irrelevant, consult with the legal provisions related to the topic, and so the dice are slowly put together and the connections between the main actors of the story are revealed “, says Đelilović.

Being an investigative journalist in the local community is a special challenge, because journalists in these areas do not have enough of their own capacities or mechanisms with which to oppose skillful political manipulations and pressures on the media, but also on their professional work.

Admir Kadrić, a journalist from Radio Brčko, believes that media workers have an excellent tool – a medium through which they can immediately get in touch with the public, help shed light on scandals and reach public opinion, but also institutions that can further prove fraud and therefore very important that journalists do research stories in local communities in order to better inform the public. “It is not at all easy at a time like this, and in a social system like ours to work on research stories, because there is great distrust among citizens due to the appearance of a large number of portals without imprints, without ethical standards, which transmit news without any checks what is and what is not responsible and professional journalism. Another problem is that investigative stories that reveal various scandals rarely lead to court investigations, but that is why they can bring a defamation lawsuit against a journalist, so the question arises whether that journalist wants to do such stories more at all,“, Kadric said, adding that one solution could be to develop a network of investigative journalists to work on stories from local communities.

Velida Kulenović, a radio journalist from Zenica, has a similar opinion, because investigative stories that expose all the anomalies of society do not lead to investigations, there is no sense of responsibility among those who are part of corrupt practices, but various manipulations continue to deal with public affairs. “I especially emphasize local communities, where journalists are under constant pressure, instead of informing citizens, educating them and talking about all the problems in their community, they are under constant attacks and under the control of local authorities. If you have elected local politicians who advocate affirmative writing and who even criticize any critical journalism, then it is difficult to talk about investigative journalism in the local media“, Kulenović emphasizes.

Workshop participants agreed that there is a trend of connecting investigative journalists with different centers of power, all in order to discredit journalists, as well as their stories, in order to put pressure on media workers not to investigate and reveal scandals and corrupt practices that they erode bh. society. Even more problematic, according to the participants, is that when investigative journalists discover an affair, corruption where politicians are involved, there are journalists who work in media supported by politicians and then attack the colleague who published the story, which loses journalistic strength and solidarity.

Workshops on investigative journalism for journalists from local media were held within the project “Free Media for a Free Society” implemented by the BH Journalists Association in cooperation with the Association of Electronic Media in BiH with the support of the European Union. The aim of the project is to strengthen independent and free journalism in local communities, and the application of European standards in the protection of freedom of expression and access of citizens to quality and objective information.

BELGRDE, 23.02.2020. – A former Serbian ruling part official was sentenced on Tuesday to more than four years in prison for ordering an arson attack on the home of an investigative journalist.

Dragoljub Simonovic, a former municipal Mayor of the Grocka suburb of Belgrade and an official of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), was sentenced for ordering the arson attack on the home of journalist Milan Jovanovic on December 12, 2018. The Jovanovic family house was burned to the ground and the journalist and his wife barely managed to escape after the house was set on fire and shots were fired at the front door. The attack followed Jovanovic’s reporting on corruption in the municipal administration.

The court also sentenced Aleksandar Marinkovic who was indicted with perpetrating the arson attack and is still at large, and middle man Vladimir Mihailovic to four years each.

Judge Slavko Zugic said that the court faced obstruction throughout the trial, especially from defense lawyers.

SARAJEVO/BANJA LUKA, 23.02.2021 – The BH Journalists Association sent letters to the cyber crime departments of the Federal Police Administration and MoI of Republika Srpska regarding the recent hacker attacks on web portals in Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska.

– According to the information we received from our colleagues from online magazine Žurnal (www.zurnal.info), from 18.02.2021. this portal was exposed to planned DDoS attacks for four days, as a result of which access to the website was blocked. Employees of Žurnal state that they suffered huge and irreparable damage and they were forced to move the entire site to another location, ie to a new server. Almost simultaneously with this attack, hacker attacks were carried out on the web portals Nomad.ba and BUKA. The editors and owners of the above mentioned media expressed justified suspicions that these hacker attacks are connected with certain centers of power which do not like the critical and investigative writing of the journalists of these portals – stated the letter of BH Journalists to the competent institutions.

Given that these attacks, regardless of where they came from, represent a serious violation of media rights and endangering media freedom, BH Journalists Association considers it necessary for institutions to conduct an efficient and thorough investigation of these cases, identify and sanction perpetrators in accordance with law.

– We draw special attention to the fact that online media in Bosnia and Herzegovina in recent years are increasingly exposed to hacker attacks that threaten the very existence of these media and their employees. Therefore, we believe that it is necessary to develop mechanisms in order to prevent such attacks in the future, and to punish the attackers in accordance with the legal provisions – BH Journalists emphasized.

SARAJEVO, 22.02. 2021 – The Steering Committee of the BH Journalists Association sends a public protest to the Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina Gordana Tadic and representatives of that judicial institution due to a series of unfounded allegations, accusations and serious pressure on the work of journalist Avdo Avdic.

After journalist Avdic published an article on Istraga.ba portal about alleged attempts to endanger the safety of Gordana Tadic, the Chief State Prosecutor issued a denial in which, among other things, she accused Avdic of “anti-civilization and barbaric discrediting” of her personality and “spreading national and religious hatred”, and a caricature interpretation of the alleged threats to her life with the aim of “preparing the ground for the liquidation of all those who interfere with the paraintelligence darkness of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

The dementi was published two days ago on Dnevni Avaz portal under the title: “Gordana Tadic: Are Avdo Avdic and the paraintelligence darkness preparing the ground for my liquidation?”. Thus, Chief Prosecutor Tadic in her reaction accused journalist Avdic of preparing her liquidation together with “paraintelligence circles”, which is an extremely serious insinuation and accusation, without offering any valid evidence and argumentation for this claim.

The Steering Committee of BH Journalists believes that by making unsubstantiated allegations, Gordana Tadic went beyond a legitimate reaction to journalistic comments and articles, which aims to deny something that is not true or that does not correspond to the facts, thereby endangering the personal safety of journalist Avdo Avdic by presenting him as a member of some criminal group planning an assassination of the chief state prosecutor!? Instead of denying the allegations in Avdic’s text, prosecutor Tadic writes a political pamphlet in which she presents herself as a victim, accusing the journalist of exerting “well-orchestrated and organized” pressure on the work of the Prosecutor’s Office although his article does not problematize any specific case which the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH is working on, but only investigations into the alleged threats to the safety of Prosecutor Tadic.

The Steering Committee of BH Journalists draws attention to the fact that it is unclear whether the response to the writing of Istraga.ba is of the Chief Prosecutor herself or is it a reaction of the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH as an institution that wants to protect the professional integrity and safety of the Chief Prosecutor. Given that the dementi was sent to the media from the Office of the Chief Prosecutor, it is undoubtedly an institutional pressure of that judicial institution on the right of journalists to freedom of expression, including the right to harsh and even brutal criticism and comments when writing about public behavior and decisions of certain officials and institutions.

The Steering Committee of BH Journalists reminds Chief State Prosecutor Gordana Tadic and the Prosecutor’s Office of BiH that if they believe that a journalist slandered Tadic and the institution she represents, they have legal mechanisms at their disposal – filing a complaint to the Council of Press and Online Media and filing defamation lawsuits. That is the only democratic and legitimate way to fight against unprofessional media writing. The use of power and influence provided to Gordana Tadic by her position as chief prosecutor and making of arbitrary, but at the same time very serious, accusations against journalists, should by no means be a way of “dealing” with journalists in public communication.

Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia condemns the obstruction of the work of journalist Dejan Kozul, who reported from Kosovo before the elections.

According to him, while he was filming on the square in Kosovska Mitrovica, a representative of the Serbian List came and explained to those gathered where to go to vote. As Kozul states for NUNS, that representative instructed everyone not to film, for it not to be misinterpreted.

“What is there to be misinterpreted? Everything is clear. I want to record and they don’t have the right to stop me from doing it”, Kozul replied.

At that moment, another person came, grabbed his hand and lowered his camera, so that he could not film.

We call on all political actors, but especially government officials, not to interfere with journalists in any way in their work.

IJAS will certainly register this case in its database of attacks and pressures on journalists, and inform the authorities and institutions.

IJAS,

16.02.2021