A team of RTV Dukagjini, consisting of journalist Liridon Llozani and cameraman Diamant Maxharraj were physically attacked today while reporting in Pejton, Prishtina for the declaration of revenues at Tax Administration of Kosovo.

The owner of one of the bars where the team was shooting, at first tried to stop them from performing their duties, and then physically assaulted the cameraman, Maxharraj.

The team immediately called the Police, who arrested the perpetrator. Journalist and the cameraman also gave their statement at the police station regarding the incident.

AJK strongly condemns this physical attack, which further increases the insecurity of journalists in their daily work.

PODGORICA, 15.02.2022 – The Government Commission that investigates cases of attacks on journalists in the new mandate records better results than its previous convocations and have been monitored almost all cases that occurred last year to final verdicts, said State Secretary of the Ministry of Interior Zoran Miljanic, who is also Vice President of Commission.

The commission, which was formed in mid-2021, consists of President Mihailo Jovovic, program director of the daily “Vijesti”, journalist and media expert Dragoljub Dusko Vukovic, NGO representative and lawyer Dalibor Tomovic, editor-in-chief of TV “Prva” Drazen Zivkovic, representative of the Society of professional journalists of Montenegro Sead Sadiković, executive secretary of the Media Council for Self-Regulation Ranko Vujović, representative of the daily “Dan” lawyer Nebojša Asanović, representative of the Trade Union of Media of Montenegro Predrag Nikolic, representative of the National Security Agency Katarina Vujovic, representative of the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office Jelena Djaletic, representative of the Higher State Prosecutor’s Office Miroslav Turkovic and representative of the Police Administration Biljana Knezevic.

“Compared to the previous composition of the Commission, members of the institutions of the system are now present and we believe that this is a better solution. The Ministry of the Interior insisted that representatives of the prosecutor’s office be among the members, because the prosecutor’s office used to be a “weak link” and now we got two members. We also insisted and got a representative of the National Security Agency and the Police Administration. All institutions agreed to give a representative in the Commission and that gave results. In 2021, all attacks on journalists received their epilogue. The perpetrators of the attack on Milka Tadic Mijovic and Esad Kocan have been convicted and are currently serving their sentences”, said Miljanic.

He said that other attacks reported by journalists are being resolved and are in various phases.

“We tried to investigate even cases that were not reported, such as the attack on RTCG journalist Nebojsa Sofranac who did not want to file a report, but we tried to find out what happened and try to act preventively,” Miljanic explained, adding that the problem was that some journalists do not report threats.

An important segment is the monitoring of cases that occur through social networks, which, as he said, are all recorded and / or punished or will be punished upon completion of the procedure.

“I am satisfied with the work of the Commission and the attitude of the Government towards it. Now, new cases are being resolved much more efficiently and faster, but the dark period of previous years remains, where the cases of attacks on journalists and the murder of Dusko Jovanovic remain unsolved. The Prosecutor’s Office is now cooperative and this can be seen in relation to the new cases that occurred during 2021. However, when it comes to previous cases, their attitude towards the Commission has remained the same and they do not provide the data we need to see what really happened in certain cases of attacks, “Miljanic said.

The problem is that two members of the Commission still do not have permission to access classified information, so they cannot work and exchange information at full capacity.

“When it comes to the case of the murder of Dusko Jovanovic, we can expect some progress in the coming period, because there is some news and we will go public when we could. We think there is finally a chance that this case will be resolved. I also think that nothing has been done before to solve this case, on the contrary, obstructions have even been made, “said Miljanic.

The editor-in-chief of the daily Dan, Dusko Jovanovic, was killed in May 2004 in front of the editorial office. Only Damir Mandic was sentenced to 19 years in prison for that murder as an accomplice.

Among the obstructions that are happening now to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Police Administration, Miljanic pointed out the attitude of the Prime Minister’s Government, which is now in the technical mandate, Zdravko Krivokapic, who still does not adopt the new systematization of jobs in those organizational units.

“Due to these obstructions regarding the systematization of jobs, it has not yet been determined who should take over the cases of attacks on journalists within the Police Administration, ie to be the first to be informed when an attack occurs. After that, we could talk and find a way to improve the records of attacks on journalists, because now it happens that cases that are not related to the professional engagement of individuals are reported and kept in the database, “said Miljanic.

Asked what happened to the team that previously existed within the Police Directorate, which specialized in cases of attacks on journalists, Miljanic said that there was no information that any team existed and that when he took over the job (coordination in cases of attacks on journalists) no one was involved.

“I do not know anything about that. If someone claimed that such a team with a certain number of people exists, I claim that they were not operational. Neither by systematization nor in any way we did not manage to identify them, nor to find who has been doing that job”, said Miljanić.

PODGORICA, 14.02.202 – On January 26 this year, the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica held a meeting between the Deputy Head of the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica, State Prosecutor Armin Selmanović and the spokesman of the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica, State Prosecutor Vukas Radonjić, and the President and expert associates of Trade Union of Media of Montenegro (SMCG), Marijana Camović-Veličković, Bojana Konatar and Dražen Đurašković.

The topic of the meeting was the criminal protection of journalists and media workers in Montenegro, in light of the latest amendments to the Criminal Code of Montenegro, which provide stronger criminal protection to persons performing activities of public importance.

The meeting was the opportunity to analyze previous cases of verbal and physical attacks on journalists, within the jurisdiction of the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica, especially the unresolved ones. Representatives of SMCG were informed about the course of proceedings, the work of state prosecutors and police and all facts relevant for decisions on whether certain socially unacceptable behaviors constitute a criminal offense or an appropriate misdemeanor. It was especially emphasized that the course of criminal and misdemeanor proceedings also requires the active participation of journalists who have been harmed by a criminal offense, in order for the State Prosecutor’s Office to make a correct and lawful decision, which would eventually be subject to assessment by the criminal court.

The final conclusions of the meeting are that the SMCG should, in accordance with the law, be informed of all ongoing proceedings in which journalists and media workers are harmed, to the extent that the course of the proceedings is not jeopardized, in order to record all relevant data in the regional database of attacks “safejournalists.net”. Also, it is concluded  to consider the need to organize training of state prosecutors to deal with cases of attacks on journalists, within the program “Jufrex 2”, and the possible specialization of state prosecutors in cases of attacks on journalists. Representatives of SMCG and all media should continue cooperation with the Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Podgorica through communication with the State Prosecutor’s Spokesperson.

The International Press Institute (IPI) today published a new report written by regional media experts and investigative journalists on the investment of Hungarian capital in foreign media and the implications for the spread of Viktor Orbán’s “illiberal” model of media control.

On April 3, Hungary will hold parliamentary elections pitching the incumbent prime minister, Viktor Orbán, against a united opposition candidate, Péter Márki-Zay, in what represents the first serious challenge to Orbán and his dominant Fidesz party since winning power in 2010. During this time, Orbán and Fidesz have become synonymous with the construction of an “illiberal democracy” in Europe. Central to their strategy has been the process of media capture by Fidesz using the instruments of the state to create a bubble of pro-government media. Independent media have been closed or transferred to party-friendly hands. And the government seeks to force the remaining critical outlets to the fringe of public debate, denying them access to information and hobbling their economic position.

The model has been extensively documented by media freedom organizations including through IPI’s 2019 press freedom mission report and  IPI’s 2021 analysis of the Hungary’s media capture model and its application in Poland. What is less well known is how Fidesz’s ambitions for media influence and control do not stop at its borders.

In recent years there has been an influx of Hungarian investments in media either in the Hungarian minority communities abroad, or in media aligned with Fidesz’s ideological political allies, particularly in Slovenia and North Macedonia. These investments and the apparent instrumentalization of these media to promote Fidesz’s wider political agenda raise serious questions about efforts to further export the Fidesz model of “illiberal democracy” and media control to its neighbours and beyond. In some cases, as in Slovenia, there are signs that the replication of this model is already underway.

Today, the International Press Institute (IPI) is publishing Hungarian Capital in Foreign Media. Three Strategic Models of Influencing the Neighbourhood, a series of articles examining how, where and for what purpose Hungarian money is being invested into foreign media. The articles explore the following topics:

• Since 2017, Hungarian businesses close to Fidesz have purchased numerous media in Slovenia and North Macedonia. While Fidesz politicians insist such investments are purely commercial, heavy investments in these media have been used to support Janes Janša’s SDS in Slovenia and the fugitive former North Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski’s VMRO DPMNE.
• Media in Hungarian minority communities in Serbia, Romania, and Slovakia have all received a boost in Hungarian financial support, which is seen as bringing these media into close alignment with Fidesz.
• Lastly, in 2019, a new international news agency, V4NA, was launched in London from where it attempts to project Fidesz’s populist narrative onto a pan-European media landscape.

The articles were produced by IPI in cooperation with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN); the Hungarian investigative reporting outlet Átlátszó and its Hungarian-language partner in Romania, Átlátszó Erdély; and the Center for Media, Data and Society at the Central European University’s Democracy Institute.

The report is published as part of IPI’s actions in the Media Freedom Rapid Response, a project which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries. It is supported by the European Commission and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

This report by IPI is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States and Candidate Countries.

PODGORICA, 11.02.2022 – Although they make up the majority of employees in the media, little is known about the position of photojournalists, cameraman, sound engineers. Research mentions them only occasionally, often pointing out that they are in a worse situation than journalists.

Trade Union of Media of Montenegro (SMCG) is one of the few organizations that brings together employees from all sectors that exist in the print and electronic media. The main problem is still that there are no official statistics on the number of employees in the media, and therefore on the number of employees in other categories who are not journalists.

Monstat data show that in 2020 there were 1,445 employees in the media sector, and a significant part of that number are other occupations. In order to better present the position of these categories of employees, SMCG conducted a mini-survey and focus group with 10 representatives of photojournalists, cameramen, sound engineers and graphic designers. Most of them, as they found out, are employed full-time, while four of them work as freelancers. Most of them work in print and electronic media, but our small research has shown that mostly one person works for several media, which are usually not competitive (such as print media and agencies, radio and portals), or for several newsrooms that are part of the same media. Nine of them have been working in journalism and media for more than 10 years, while one person has been in this business for less than two years.

The position of employees in other sectors is perhaps best described by the fact that half are forced to work for more than one newsroom in the mainstream media, while the same number are employed in more than two media outlets. Unfortunately, the fact that the representatives of these professions told us that they are not in a position to improve also speaks of their position.

“The medium I work for does not have the opportunity to give me a day off, not to give me training,” one of the focus group participants told us.

When it comes to the economic components of work engagement, other media workers cannot boast either.

“Half of us work for more than eight hours. Only a few have the luxury of working six or eight hours “, reads one of the answers.

When it comes to overtime work, media workers agree that it occurs almost every day. Half of them, as they say, never get paid for that work, and the rest get it regularly. But the situation is changing when it comes to working on weekends.

“Working on weekends is a constant in the media. I work constantly on weekends, and a large number of my colleagues, but we are not paid for that work. I don’t know if any media pays for that”, states one of the participants.

Media workers testify that their salaries are mostly regular, but also that they are more often concerned with salaries that are not fixed, but partly depends on performance. Also, according to them, the average salary in other sectors of the media industry is between 400 and 500 euros, which is still below the national average and insufficient. Most of the employees we spoke to point out that their economic position has changed for the worse since the Covid crisis, which also affected the media sector. That is why, and because of a number of problems they face at work, they are forced to deal with some other paid jobs. Thus, in addition to journalism, they are also involved in sound design, consulting services, teaching or working as freelancers for foreign agencies.

Our interlocutors said that they are mostly members of trade unions, as well as that they are free to unite, but they do not believe that trade unions can help them fight for a better financial position. More than half of them told us that they, or their colleagues, had to censor their work, and half of them said that they felt some kind of political interference or pressure during their work.

And when it comes to the biggest problems they face, the list is long. “The biggest challenge is to remain a professional despite poor pay, discrimination against photojournalists, disrespect for the Labor Law, increasing dismissal of photojournalists, and disrespect for copyright,” was one of the answers.

Among the problems are discrimination (because they work in a media that is recognized as biased), poor work distribution and overload, self-handling of new technologies, unregulated market or simply because they do a job about which very little is known. Some of the respondents also said that their main challenge is to “save their heads when protests and rallies are taking place”.

“Low salary, lack of equipment that the editorial office will not provide are only part of the problem. I am forced to work with personal equipment, without any compensation, which would enable me to renew or upgrade the existing one”, states one respondent.

But even though they admit that their job is poorly paid and poorly appreciated a small number of those we spoke to would leave this profession. They believe that the state, professional associations and the newsrooms themselves must do something to improve the position of all media workers and to make their jobs more secure.