Author: Ivana Jelača

TROLL OF THE MONTH: Stefan Lazarov, YouTube influencer

April 3, 2023

The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkans region.

A popular North Macedonian YouTuber and influencer by the name of Stefan Lazarov recently published a podcast episode which featured a well-known journalist with decades of experience, Dragan Pavlovic-Latas. During the show, amongst other things, the two individuals began to discuss the guest’s sexual past. Latas openly admitted to a case of rape of a young woman when he was 15-16 years old. Whilst describing the rape, both Latas and Lazarov were laughing about the situation. Lazarov is a popular YouTuber in the country, with a large number of followers of around 77,500, highlighting his large viewership.

Following the publication of the podcast, there was an avalanche of reaction on social media, which both criticised and publicly shamed the release of the interview. The pressure on the YouTuber resulted in him removing the video from his channel. Furthermore, the contents of the show and the story Latas discussed caught the attention of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. According to the organisation the fact that the video received over 50,000 views and the issue of rape and sexual violence was deemed a topic and source of laughter only serves to portray the ‘realistic representation of how we treat women victims of violence’. Furthermore, the Committee highlighted how the fact that the topic was deemed a source of amusement is something which only further highlights the ‘painful indicator of what normalising a culture of violence looks like in practice and where institutional inaction and the lack of clear attitudes and policies that protect victims rather than abusers can lead to.’ The Committee rightfully pointed out the ongoing issue within society whereby incidents such as these involving abuse and non-consensual acts of violence are deemed a laughing matter. No form of sexual abuse or violence towards women should ever be seen as a matter of mockery or source of entertainment – they are crimes and should therefore be treated as such. Individuals should face the consequences and punishment for such actions.

Alongside the reaction from the public, institutions, and civil society organizations, the Department for Computer Crime at the Ministry of Internal Affairs submitted a request to the Basic Public Prosecutor’s office in Skopje resulting in a case being opened.

Furthermore, despite the video being deleted and removed from Lazarov’s channel, it has since then been re-uploaded by an unknown YouTube account and only recently deleted in the past few days. Although it is not known who the YouTube channel is associated with or for what means it was re-uploaded, it is extremely problematic that such content continued to have a platform and visibility.

Sexual harassment and violence towards women in any form holds no justification. Permitting Latas to discuss rape that he committed, whilst laughing and mocking the situation is highly problematic. Violence towards women is an issue which continues to exist within society and highlights the lack of both institutional protection of women and the societal attitudes towards rape and sexual abuse. Incidents like these can be seen to normalise these acts of abuse. Mocking and laughing at the topics discussed rather than condemning the situation and reporting Latas for his acts, only serves to relativise such behaviour within society. Relativisation of gender-based violence is a frequent practice in the Western Balkans, which RDN 2.0 monitoring confirms. However, Lazarov has a responsibility to be accountable for what he releases on his YouTube channel and should face the consequences for allowing such content to go unchallenged on his platform.

THE ALBANIANS SAILING TO THE U.K.

April 1, 2023

XENOPHOBIA AND SIMPLISTIC NARRATIVES HARM ALBANIAN ASYLUM-SEEKERS IN THE U.K.

Last November, the British Home Office Secretary Suella Braverman raised the alarm in Parliament about “an invasion of the southern coast by illegal boats.” She emphasized in particular the increase in Albanian arrivals, whom she accused of scamming the U.K. government and taking advantage of laws meant to prevent slavery and trafficking and to support victims. She argued that individuals coming from a country deemed safe by the U.K. government, as Albania is, should be stripped of their right to claim asylum and that there should be further restrictions of immigration to the U.K.

In the months since there has been an increase in inflammatory statements targeting the Albanian community in the U.K. In particular, the Conservative party and affiliated media outlets have brought disproportionate focus to bear on young Albanian men “flooding” the British shores and engaging in illegal gang activity.

Amid a deepening economic crisis, the political elite and mainstream media have joined forces in creating a moral panic focused on supposed security threats and the economic cost of immigration and its impact on the British taxpayers in an attempt to deflect public attention from the real causes of soaring inequality.

Treating migrants as a demographic, security or economic threat is a classic political maneuver in the U.K. that the Tories in particular have been using for decades in their quest for a homogeneous Britain.

For instance, in the post-war period, thousands of non-white migrants from the British Commonwealth settled permanently in the U.K., transforming the ethnic and racial make-up of British society. These demographic changes sparked a racist backlash among many in the country, including among the political leadership. Former conservative leader and prime minister Margaret Thatcher was frequently criticized by communities of color for overtly racist or dog-whistle statements, such as sympathizing with some Brits’ racial anxieties of being “swamped by people with a different culture.”

NIGEL FARAGE CLAIMED A “FLOOD” OF ALBANIAN MEN WERE STORMING THE U.K. AND THAT THE MAJORITY OF THESE MEN ARE PRONE TO ORGANIZED CRIME.

We see the most recent version of this xenophobia in the treatment of Albanian migrants who are presented as a dangerous masculine force invading the country. Reduced to “scammers” who are “linked with gangs,” we are presented with a portrait of Albanians as a homogenous group of single young men who are a threat to society and unwilling to assimilate into British society.

For example, during a BBC interview, Nigel Farage (former Brexit Party leader) claimed a “flood” of Albanian men were storming the U.K. and that the majority of these men are prone to organized crime.

Most Albanians crossing the English channel in small boats are indeed men and boys. Figures from the Home Office state that from 2018 to June 2022, 95% of Albanian small boat arrivals were male. People like Farage use this fact and twist it, creating dehumanizing generalizations that erase the complicated and intersecting factors that lead young Albanians to flee Albania for the U.K.

The scaremongering creates a racist discourse about Albanians. Despite the fact that Albanians consider themselves as “white,” are generally accepted as such, the vilification of Albanian immigrants is arguably a racialized process of differentiation, what scholar Avtar Brah calls the “racialisation of ethnicity.” The monolithic image of the threatening Albanian male migrant, prone to pathological forms of masculinity and characterized by a proximity to illegal activity, differs little from other racist white European narratives of outsiders.

The Conservative narrative not only creates this false portrait of the Albanian man, it also erases the Albanian women seeking asylum in the U.K., women who are in need of protection and have been ignored or overlooked.

In reality, Albanians are pushed or pulled to the U.K. due to coming from one of Europe’s poorest countries, and the social problems that emerge from such an impoverished place. Young Albanians are pushed into the hands of traffickers due to poverty or low education, domestic violence or sexual abuse, blood feuds, violence, labor exploitation, homelessness or ethnic discrimination (in the case of Roma or Egyptians).

AROUND 85% OF ALBANIAN ADULTS REFERRED INTO THE U.K.’S NATIONAL REFERRAL MECHANISM WERE RECOGNIZED AS GENUINE VICTIMS OF TRAFFICKING AND MODERN SLAVERY.

According to a 2019 report by Asylum Research Center, “Albania: Trafficked boys and young men,” trafficking of men and boys in the north of Albania remains a serious human rights issue. Epidemic corruption and a weak legal system has enabled the proliferation of trafficking criminal gangs. As the study shows, the traffickers take advantage of the impoverishment of these communities and manipulate them with false promises of job opportunities, only to abandon the migrants on the shores after pocketing their fee, or forcing them into exploitative labor conditions in the U.K. to pay off inflated debts.

How safe is a country like Albania?

Many migrant experts have criticized how the Conservative party has singled-out Albanian asylum-seekers. “Refugee Council,” a charity with experience providing practical support for Albanian asylum seekers, notes that there are a staggeringly high number of victims of sexual and criminal exploitation in Albania.

Albanians have also for some time been one of the largest groups trafficked into the U.K. In 2022, the U.S. Department of State published a report stating that 2,511 Albanian nationals were victims of trafficking in the U.K., making them the most at-risk foreign nationality in the country for trafficking. According to Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit (MiCLU), a legal hub based in London that offers strategic litigation, between 2019 and 2022 around 85% of Albanian adults referred into National Referral Mechanism (the U.K.’s national framework for identifying and supporting potential victims of modern slavery) were recognized as genuine victims of trafficking and modern slavery.

The U.N. Refugee Convention particularly notes armed conflicts and wars as creating the type of persecution that would grant somebody refugee status, but it does not limit legitimate grounds for claiming asylum only to war. A wide range of factors are listed as legitimating claims to refugee status and asylum, such as race or ethnicity, political opinion, religion, and membership in specific social groups. Many fear persecution, even if there is no state of war.

Despite Albania being designated a safe country and not in a state of war, there is an astounding level of corruption, sexual violence, domestic violence and other societal issues that the state has long been incapable of addressing. Despite criticism from British politicians and media, the Home Office, which itself has been criticized for its anti-Albanianism, has been forced to recognize this fact when they actually look into the asylum claims of Albanian migrants — for the 12 month period ending in June 2022, 90% of Albanian women claiming asylum were granted a visa and recognized as in genuine need of protection.

Based on my volunteering experience with Albanian asylum-seekers in the U.K., the diverse lived experiences of asylum claimants from Albania should not be bracketed under rigid categories such as economic migrants. It is not solely poverty driving these people to the U.K. The demonization of Albanians as scammers of modern slavery laws is racist and wrong.

A number of organizations in the U.K. have condemned the offensive rhetoric directed at Albanians and have called out the recent failures to provide safe legal routes for asylum-seeking as a form of state-sanctioned violence. Human rights activists are asking the Home Office to embrace a trauma-informed asylum system, one which does not blame a particular national group for the U.K.’s flawed immigration policies, but instead invests in increasing capacities for the adequate accommodation of refugees and faster asylum-processing system.

Author: Kristina Millona

Photo credit: K2.0.

This article was originally produced for and published by Kosovo 2.0 within the framework of RDN 2.0 project. It has been re-published here with permission.

This article was produced based on the media monitoring done by the Reporting Diversity Network 2.0, with the financial support of the European Union, Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade.

Monthly Monitoring Highlights: sexism, ethnic and religious tensions during February

March 17, 2023

Throughout the month of February, the RDN monitoring team has detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. This month we have witnessed sexism, religious and ethnic discrimination, and homophobia in the Western Balkans media.

Sexism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and Albania

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, portal Klix.ba published an article regarding the composition of the new state government. However, when reporting on a female member, Jovanka Božović Milovanović, who has been appointed to become the head of the cabinet of the Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications the article focused on a separate, unrelated period of her life. The article, ‘The actress from the Crvena Jabuka video became the head of the cabinet of Forto’s deputy’ concentrated on her appearance in a music video instead of highlighting her academic achievements and career as an individual who is taking up a new important position within the government. Crvena Jabuka – a pop rock band formed in Sarajevo in the 80s – was very popular in Yugoslavia in the 80s and 90s. Jovanka Božović Milovanović was described in the beginning of the article as an individual who graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts and who had studied literature, but was shortly then reduced to the role of an individual who made an appearance in a music video. This article failed to cover important information such as the competence and expertise of the head of the cabinet to be. Such treatment is not unusual when it comes to women in public life in the Balkans, but it indeed represents sexist practices that are harmful for women and the rest of society.

In Serbia, on K1 television during the show ‘Ako progovorim’ (If I speak out), the host of the show, Gordana Goca Tržan, was talking about the experience of women being harassed in public places, including receiving inappropriate comments from men. During the discussion, Tržan turned to the audience and posed the question ‘Have you ever had the experience, girls, of walking down the street and someone honking at you from a building or a car and saying, ‘hey little girl, you look good?.’ Many of the women in the audience responded that they had indeed had those experiences. Tržan then asked them if they were happy when this happened to them or if it ‘terribly annoys them and sexually harasses them’. The audience responded, with the majority saying that they were not pleased with it. Tržan responded ‘are you normal? Well, if it weren’t for those on the construction sites, no one would ever tell you that you’re a hot chick’.

This dialogue and rhetoric are extremely dangerous and problematic, amplified by the fact that such ideas and narratives are promoted by a host on a television program with a large viewership. Furthermore, this commentary was met with laughter and a clap from guests on the show and from some individuals in the audience, thereby, encouraging such statements. The entire rhetoric is both sexist, undermining the experience of those who have been victims of harassment be it sexual, physical, or verbal, and fails to address sexual harassment as a social issue. Sharing and promoting such ideas only serves to justify this behavior and further promote sexism in society whilst encouraging cat calling and other forms of harassment in public spaces. This clip from the show went viral on social media and received a large amount of criticism.

On TV Klan in Albania, an investigative journalism show called ‘Stop’ recently reported on a rape case which occurred in the town of Belsh where a man raped a 20-year-old woman ‘with mental disabilities’ – as implied in the show. The man was reported to the police after which he was granted permission to face the family of the girl and was then eventually let free. Following this, the ‘Stop’ show’s journalists interviewed both the perpetrator and the victim. The victim was asked extremely disturbing questions including ‘how did he open your legs?’ and ‘what were you wearing?’ This first and foremost violates the woman’s privacy and integrity, and moreover, is both insensitive and callous following an extremely traumatic event.

Sexual trauma and rape are extremely disturbing events and are illegal, but have not been treated like that by the TV Klan. Having a victim interviewed on live television and asked a series of insensitive questions regarding her experience goes against all moral and ethical guidelines. This is extremely problematic and completely ignores the emotions and dignity of the victim in question. Both the TV show and journalists should be held responsible for failing to adhere to journalistic standards when reporting on rape and sexual violence. Allowing such events to take place with no repercussion only further allows for instances like these to be repeated in the future. Furthermore, this only further strays away from the important issue of violence towards women and the lack of adequate responses and consequences of such actions.

Homophobia in Kosovo

In Kosovo, a member of the parliament of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, Albana Bytyqi, told online media outlet Insajderi that she and her political party will not be voting for the Civil Code, that would recognise same sex civil partnerships. Her justification and reasoning behind this decision was on the basis that she did not want her children to ‘go astray’ tomorrow and tell her that she voted for the Civil Code, thereby, taking away that right from them. This statement was also conveyed by the online media Insajderi on their Facebook page, which resulted in several comments supporting the member of parliament’s decision and alongside this, using the language of hatred towards the LGBTQ+ community.

Having a member of parliament and an individual of political power and influence express homophobic narratives and ideas of ‘going astray’ is very problematic. Every individual regardless of their sexual orientation should have equal rights and freedom of choice to love and live with whom they desire. Spreading rhetoric like this only further spurs on homophobic and anti-LGBTQ+ narratives in society. In Kosovo, the majority opposes the LGBTQ+ community and often use hateful language against them. Politicians and those in power have a moral responsibility to prevent the spread of hate and be aware of the influence of their opinions on society. Furthermore, media such as Insajderi should not provide the platform for the further spread of hateful, anti-LGBTQ+ narratives.

Ethnic Discrimination in North Macedonia

Journalist Milenko Nedelkovski recently published a tweet which translated reads as follows: “Did SDS enter the Shiptar government?” With this tweet Nedelkovski was insinuating that Albanian parties are in fact the main rulers of the government and not the SDSM party – the Social Democratic Union of Macedonia. Milenko Nedelkovski is a long-time supporter of the policies and public officials of the largest conservative party, which is also currently the opposition party, known as VMRO-DPMNE. He has been very vocal on several occasions about his distrust in Albanian parties and has often expressed hateful narratives and rhetoric toward the ethnic-Albanian people in North Macedonia.

The tweet received over seven thousand views, reaching a large audience. Ethnic discrimination holds no place in political narratives, especially in a country where it can influence relations between two major ethnic groups. Having an individual with a large viewership express hateful narratives towards the ethnic-Albanian population in North Macedonia is very harmful and only serves to create divide and tension in the country.

Religious discrimination in Montenegro

Rožaje is a town located in the northeast of Montenegro which is inhabited by predominantly Muslims. It has one Orthodox Church, which was recently repaired and repainted with the help of donations from the Muslim community. However, it was recently discovered that following the redecoration, a fresco was painted on a wall, which sparked controversy and dispute in the country. The fresco depicted Muslim men with knives, holding torches, heading towards the church. Alongside this, a man with a knife stands above a crib with a baby, its mother by its side.

This image sparked debate and outcry from the Islamic Community in Montenegro, with its head, Rifat Fejzic, warning that the fresco is ‘inciting ethnic divisions with the country’. Moreover, it was discovered that the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro had indeed approved such a painting to be drawn.

A drawing like this, which is clearly aimed at targeting a religious group, is extremely dangerous and creates further division in the town of Rožaje. Moreover, in a country like Montenegro with a sensitive political climate and characterised by a variety of religious communities, incidents like these can spark tension amongst groups in society.

Even though most media reported on this situation critically, warning that it might deepen religious intolerance, some right-oriented and pro-Serbian media used it to incite hate. Online portal IN4S interviewed Budimir Aleksić, Member of Parliament from the Democratic Front, a pro-Serbian party, about the issue. Aleksić used the situation to attack political opponents, accusing the former ruling Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (DPS) of historical revisionism, and disregarding the feelings of the Muslim community in Montenegro. All criticism of the frescos was labeled as an attack on the church. Other Pro- Serbian portals, such as Borba and Pogled, republished the interview.

TROLL OF THE MONTH: Milorad Dodik, president of Republika Srpska

March 7, 2023

February Troll is Milorad Dodik, president of Republika Srpska, for, once again, denying the genocide in Srebrenica.

In July 2021, the High Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time, Valentin Inzko, used his power to impose amendments to the country’s criminal code in order to ban ‘the denial of genocide and the glorification of war criminals’, if it was ‘likely to incite to violence or hatred”. It included a punishment of imprisonment ranging between six months to five years.

According to Inzko, the main driving forces behind the decision were a concerning number of individuals and public authorities who questioned the legitimacy of rulings by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the glorification of convicted war criminals.

Despite the law being put into place, denial of the Srebrenica genocide and the public glorification of war criminals continued without any consequences. Many political leaders in Republika Srpska to this day refuse to accept that the events, which took place at Srebrenica in 1995, constitute an act of genocide even though the International Court of Justice recognized it as such.

This month (In February 2023), the current High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, amended the Law on Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Centre, to allow for excess donations and funds for burials and monuments to be redirected to other needs of the centre. The Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Centre serves as a memorial-cemetery to honour the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.

However, this decision was not accepted by all political leaders in the country, namely Milorad Dodik, President of the Republika Srpska. During a press conference, he publicly rejected the recent amendment of the law and openly voiced his denial of the events which occurred at Srebrenica as being an act of genocide. According to him, “genocide did not happen there, we all know that here in the Republika Srpska”. Milorad Dodik and his party have on numerous occasions denied the genocide in Srebrenica, claiming it to be a massacre that cannot fall under the qualification of genocide.

BIRN (Balkan Investigative Reporting Network) recently obtained documents showing the reasons behind the lack of a single indictment since the ban on ‘the denial of genocide and the glorification of war criminals’ was imposed. In the article by BIRN, it was revealed that from the time the ban was brought in back in July 2021 to the end of 2022, state prosecutors decided ‘not to conduct a total of 27 investigations into alleged denial and glorification offences’. One of the arguments used by alleged perpetrators was that freedom of speech was guaranteed under the county’s constitution.

However, regardless of this, denying the genocide that occurred in Srebrenica is first and foremost extremely harmful and disrespectful to the victims and their families. There is no justification for acts of genocide and both the perpetrators and those who deny the events having taken place, should face the consequences of doing so. Political leaders, such as Dodik who have a large influence over public opinion and hold high positions of power, should be held responsible for their actions, and abide by the law whilst equally facing the repercussions of failing to do so.

THE WAR IN UKRAINE, SCAMS AND COVID CONSPIRACIES

February 28, 2023

FACT-CHECKING IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA.

At Raskrinkavanje — a fact-checking website devoted to debunking disinformation and misinformation circulating in the news and on social media — 2022 was a busy year. The disinformation trends in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) mostly revolved around the invasion of Ukraine, the General elections held in October, conspiratorial echoes of the covid-19 “infodemic” and a steady stream of social media scams.

The year started with an explosion of false narratives about Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, ranging from claims that nothing was even happening to accusations that the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was fleeing the country after “instigating” the war.

Some of the early falsehoods related to the war were difficult to check, as independent and reliable sources were hard to reach in the combat zone. But many were just recycled versions of old propaganda tales, like Ukraine being a “nazi state,” or hosting U.S. biolabs set up to “destroy Russian DNA.” The story about laboratories (spread locally by the Russian Embassy in BiH) fit in with QAnon conspiracy theories, so it was quickly picked up by their followers who praised Putin’s attack on Ukraine as a fight to “save humanity” from the “satanist cabal.”

Less phantasmagoric, but equally false, were the narratives of Serbian tabloids and nationalist websites that consistently mirrored Putin’s war propaganda. They famously portrayed Ukraine as the aggressor, took the opportunity to revamp old falsehoods about the “Western media staging wars” and amplified disinformation from trolls on social networks. One of the frequent false claims was that NATO has troops on the ground in Ukraine, but the same sources simultaneously also claimed that Ukraine had lost the support of the EU and/or NATO, whose high officials supposedly advocated for making concessions to Russia in order to end the war.

When the attack started, an international cooperative of fact-checkers and a database of fact-checks was established almost immediately to exchange information more quickly and efficiently. Six months into the invasion, the regional fact-checking network SEE Check also made a detailed overview of the claims, sources and targets of disinformation about the war that were spreading in the Balkans.

The elections

In BiH, 2022 was an election year, and the campaign made the usual ripples in the disinformation ecosystem: “phantom websites” popped up again to pose as news media while attempting to advance a party or a candidate; photoshopped pictures of real or made up candidates were circulating on social media; and political parties used “brigading” on social media to promote their messages during the campaign.

Once again we saw the complete alignment of the media in the Republika Srpska and the SNSD (the entity’s ruling party led by Milorad Dodik) in spreading disinformation about opposition parties and candidates. The go-to move of Dodik’s political propaganda is to make up coup plots and conspiracies against him and to portray the opposition as “traitorous.”

IN 2022, THE NARRATIVES GOT MORE OUTLANDISH AND ELABORATE.

In 2022, however, the narratives got more outlandish and elaborate. For example, RTRS, the entity’s public broadcaster, promoted a ridiculous claim that NATO is planning to kidnap Dodik and used a forged document as “proof” that the U.S. Embassy in BiH paid for the campaign of Jelena Trivić, the candidate challenging Dodik for the position of president of Republika Srpska.

An infodemic

After two years of battling conspiracy theories that sprung from the pandemic, in 2022 we published research about the Bosnian public’s belief in various disinformation narratives. We learned that about 25% of the population exhibits strong belief in conspiracy theories, another 25% dismiss them, but a little over 50% are somewhere in the middle, either undecided about the veracity of such stories, or prone to believing some but not others.

One of the questions we asked was about the claim that covid-19 is not an infectious disease, but a result of “poisoning from the air.” This was a pandemic rendition of the old conspiracy theory about “chemtrails,” which claims that the white condensation trails behind airplanes are toxic substances that are part of a secret plan to depopulate the Earth.

The claim that covid is induced by chemtrails received the support of 24% of the participants, while 51% disagreed and 25% were undecided. However, looking into social networks, one would think that almost everyone believes we’re being poisoned from the sky: the story has remained staunchly persistent and viral ever since the pandemic broke out.

In the past year, various things were randomly connected to chemtrails in the conspiratorial imaginaries including Saharan dust clouds, “biolabs” and pre-election campaigns of fringe politicians. The story is often told as a triumphant tale of governments, reputable institutions or whistleblowers admitting that chemtrails are real, sometimes paired with dubious and potentially risky advice on how to protect yourself against this nonexistent threat.

Another undying trend is that of anti-vaccination propaganda, forever using false claims or deliberately misinterpreting statistics to portray immunization as “deadly.” Without a shred of evidence, covid-19 vaccines are accused of “killing millions” in the past year, linked to various unrelated deaths, excess mortality, child mortality, miscarriages, drops in fertility, HIV/AIDS, or cancer.

MANY OF THESE CLAIMS ARE NEW ITERATIONS OF OLD STORIES THAT HAVE BEEN DEBUNKED TIME AND TIME AGAIN.

Many of these claims are just new iterations of old stories that have been debunked time and time again, but they are believed by 55 to 60% of unvaccinated people in BiH. The unfortunate trend of people with medical backgrounds spreading anti-vaccination falsehoods has also continued.

But we also had some new, particularly bizarre anti-vaccination “hits” this year. The story of a judge that ruled that “vaccine deaths” should be treated as suicide was first linked to a non-existent court trial in France, then in Germany. According to similar types of sources a civil war even broke out in the neighboring Austria over “forced immunization;” Australia’s government tried to administer vaccines by spraying them from the sky, “chemtrails” style; and a combination of 5G signals, chemtrails and vaccines have produced a mysterious phenomenon where people and animals spin themselves into “ballerina deaths.”

For a while, monkeypox had been one of the hot topics in conspiratorial websites, where it was presented as a “gay disease,” replaying some of the covid-19 narratives, but with a homophobic twist.

What awaits in 2023?

Another type of disinformation that is likely to remain ubiquitous is pseudomedicine, used relentlessly by various bad actors from clickbait websites to conspiracy theorists and quack doctors who sell untested supplements or “treatments.” All of them earn money by promoting dangerous claims about “natural cancer cures” and miracle cure-alls, ascribing these powers to everything from petroleum to lemon, baking soda, or coconut oil.

Fake interviews with local celebrities or testimonies of made-up doctors who recommend bogus health products are another type of pseudomedical claim we see frequently. This has become particularly widespread in the past few years, with most of such cases leading back to a single company that has sued us for writing about fraudulent advertising practices used to sell their products. Fake Facebook giveaways of everything from cash prizes and smartphones to cars and houses are another type of scam that keeps returning year after year.

But we are seeing some new and emerging trends as well, most coming from English-speaking right-wing influencers and conspiracy theorists. Climate change denial has started seeping into the local online space, which is a particularly ironic development given the BiH’s enormous problems with air pollution. In these narratives, global warming is presented as a hoax perpetrated by the “New World Order” in order to establish control over the population. This large narrative has birthed many side plots, like claims that people will be forced to eat insects, or that car ownership may become illegal.

We noticed that anti-abortion narratives, seemingly imported from similar outside sources, are also rising in visibility, with groups based in the U.S. aiming to reach vulnerable women in BiH using, among other things, false claims about abortion risks. Disinformation targeting LGBTQ+ people has also been more present this year, mostly spilling over from Serbia, where Europride was targeted and scapegoated. But BiH had its own, home-grown political instrumentalization of homophobia, with attempts to build and use resentment against the Pride parade in the pre-election campaign.

Raskrinkavanje had its fifth birthday this year and, based on what we’ve been seeing so far, we can be fairly certain that some timeless classics, like conspiracy theories about the moon landing and 9/11 attack, will continue to circulate as they did in the past year.

Sadly, there’s plenty to keep fact-checkers busy.

Author: Tijana Cvijetičanin

Photo: Majlinda Hoxha / K2.0.

This article was originally produced for and published by Kosovo 2.0. It has been re-published here with permission.

This article is the fifth in a series of articles from fact-checking platforms in the Balkans. Through this series, fact-checkers from Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia elaborate on common trends in disinformation and malinformation.

FIGHTING DISINFORMATION IN NORTH MACEDONIA

February 21, 2023

MALIGN AND UNDEMOCRATIC INFLUENCES ARE TRYING TO HOLD US BACK.

Disinformation comes in waves. Sometimes you are flooded in it, other times it makes itself scarce. When the media landscape is flooded with news, the disinformation also becomes plentiful. And the other way around.

The strength of a disinformation wave depends on the type of the news flooding the shores of public discourse. If a news event or aspect of current affairs that is targeted with disinformation has an end date, so will the disinformation about it. If the topic is open-ended, disinformation will follow it for quite some time.

A prime example is the persistence of covid-19 and vaccine disinformation, which has been exacerbated by the existing networks of indoctrinated individuals (like the anti-vax movement) just waiting to come out from the shadows and spread their narratives and fake stories.

Similar movements are seizing the day peddling fake medicines and cures. All of a sudden all kinds of pills and remedies have appeared accompanied by claims of healing covid-19 and other illnesses. The selling point for these “medicines” are that they cure various diseases caused or exacerbated by covid-19 or by covid vaccines. These vaccines do not cause any illnesses, of course, but why gripe over details?

And then came the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Strangely, many of the same internet and social media properties spreading covid disinformation also spread pro-Kremlin disinformation. These individuals are geniuses, it seems. Their field of expertise is unimaginably wide. No matter the subject, they are ready, willing and capable to lie about it.

At the beginning there was a lot of confusion. You could see the peddlers of disinformation switching to a testing mode, trying to discover what would work on their victims’ tortured minds and what wouldn’t. You could also see they were scraping from the bottom of the disinformation barrel: they used scenes from video games and claimed it was footage of a dog fight between Ukrainian and Russian combat aircraft. Many of these accounts were rehashing pictures and videos from 2014 or even from the 1990s Yugoslav wars and presenting them as scenes from the current war, often claiming the image or video depicted Ukrainian soldiers doing something bad.

MANY OF THE SAME SOCIAL MEDIA PROPERTIES SPREADING COVID DISINFORMATION ALSO SPREAD PRO-KREMLIN DISINFORMATION.

But as time passed the production of pro-Russian propaganda and disinformation shifted gear and sped up. The quality improved and you could feel there was some logic behind the specific disinformation; you could see they were using at least a little bit of truth as bait to gain confidence from readers before they poison the content with a ton of lies on top.

As Russian battlefield losses mounted the inspiration for lies diminished. It’s hard to lie with any confidence when the whole world sees you losing territory for months. You can see that the Kremlin’s efforts to find or invent Nazis in Ukraine, for example, preferably among Ukrainian leadership, has lost steam and became an impossible task.

Kremlin propagandists think that social media users leave their brains at the kitchen table before going to the living room and opening their devices to catch up on the latest news and stumbling upon their latest lies.

For example, they claimed that a teen girl right-wing extremist who was in the news in 2014 was Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky’s niece. She isn’t. And it wasn’t hard for the fact checkers in Ukraine and abroad to check the claim. This was similar to the imaginary Nazi insignia on one of the beads of a bracelet seen around the wrist of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Nazi insignia that no one else was able to see, except the Kremlin propagandists’ “eagle eyes.”

Networks of disinformation

One can also notice attempts of (rather basic and crude) “market segmentation” in the Kremlin’s disinformation efforts and the targeting of specific countries, reinforced by already existing pro-Kremlin networks.

For years now, the Kremlin has been getting close to various fringe groups and movements. While they work to gain influence over extreme left-wing, neo-Stalinist or communist groups, they are also happy to cozy up to nationalists, traditionalists, the ultra-religious, autocrats, anti-LGBT activists, biker gangs and even militias, depending on local situations.

In many of these groups the Kremlin has created or tried to create their own networks and associations, such as Russian-domestic friendship associations. They often try to organize a few local Russians alongside the group, even if it’s just a couple because a couple Russians alongside some pro-Russian locals does the trick for them — especially if they are internet proficient and ready to amplify the Kremlin’s propaganda in the local context and in the local language.

WHILE THE KREMLIN WORKS TO GAIN INFLUENCE OVER EXTREME LEFT-WING OR NEO-STALINIST GROUPS, THEY’RE HAPPY TO COZY UP TO NATIONALISTS, THE ULTRA-RELIGIOUS, ANTI-LGBT ACTIVISTS, OR BIKER GANGS.

When the networks are not enough, they use the official social media accounts of local Russian embassies. If international attention is required, the Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in London can do the trick, but if they want the disinformation to fly under the radar and not to be picked up by international media, then the Twitter account of the Russian Embassy in а smaller non-English-speaking country is called upon.

But when they want to sow fear, rage and division among their enemies, because it suits their political goals, they search for points of contention and disagreements among them. Then they try to amplify and widen such disagreements. They simply side with one of the parties against the other one, stoking anger and suspicion that the side receiving Kremlin support is actually working hand-in-hand with the Kremlin.

This is exactly what they did when trying to exploit Macedonian-Bulgarian disagreement over history and language, which led to a Bulgarian veto over the start of North Macedonia’s EU accession negotiations. They used the Twitter account of their embassy in Skopje to side with North Macedonia, thus enraging Bulgaria in an attempt to widen the gap between the two neighboring countries.

With the row between North Macedonia and Bulgaria now in high gear, with accusations and counter-accusations flying back and forth, and with North Macedonia’s accession negotiations starting to look barely reachable, it seems things have gone the way the Kremlin wanted, which leaves greater potential for future Russian meddling and influence-peddling in the Balkans.

Fighting malign influences, what can be done?

At the Metamorphosis Foundation, where I work as a fact-checking editor, we are trying to discover, analyze and unmask foreign undemocratic and malign influences, especially those attempting to undermine the long-pursued strategic orientation of North Macedonia as a future fully integrated Euro-Atlantic partner, dependable member of NATO and one-day EU member.

This is not important only for North Macedonia, but for all the other Western Balkan countries, which all face some degree of malign influence from Russia and attempts to hold them back from the European path.

With an established base of Russian influence in the country, Serbia is especially vulnerable to the Kremlin’s malign activities. This same influence is also deeply established in Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as among Serbs in the north of Kosovo.

Cracks in public opinion regarding Russia’s aggression against Ukraine can be spotted in North Macedonia. The fact that North Macedonia has been an EU candidate country since 2005 and hasn’t moved forward at all, despite the change of the country’s name as requested by Greece, has pushed some Macedonians over the edge, making them lose their confidence in the West and to look elsewhere regarding their country’s prosperity and security.

Our long term efforts to strengthen the public’s confidence in Euro-Atlantic institutions and keep the malign propaganda at bay in North Macedonia and the region are being implemented with the help of our international partners and in close cooperation with our partners from all over Western Balkans.

We are monitoring and analyzing public sources of disinformation, using public interest journalism, as well as our fact-checking experience to stop foreign malign and undemocratic influences by fighting disinformation and unmasking manipulation, preventing the spread of fear, anger, manufactured disputes and everything else coming out from the propaganda textbooks of the bad actors.

This is part of our fight to preserve and strengthen democracy in our region and lessen the opportunities for bad actors to spread propaganda and disinformation.

Author: Vladimir Petreski

Photo: Majlinda Hoxha / K2.0.

This article was originally produced for and published by Kosovo 2.0. It has been re-published here with permission.

This article is the fourth in a series of articles from fact-checking platforms in the Balkans. Through this series, fact-checkers from Kosovo, Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and North Macedonia elaborate on common trends in disinformation and malinformation.

Monthly monitoring highlights: Sexism and ethnic discrimination

February 10, 2023

Throughout the month of January, the RDN monitoring team has detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. This month, in the Western Balkans media, there has been sexism, ethnic discrimination and hate speech against political opponents.

Ethnic discrimination in Kosovo and Montenegro

In Kosovo, Shqipdon Salijaj, a freelance videographer from Kacanik, published a video on Instagram which depicts him in a store purchasing several Serbian products including Plazma biscuits – a very well-known product in the region. When he opens the bag and packaging instead of biscuits he finds bullets. He then opens the second bag, which also contains ammunition, as well as the other two purchased products. At the end of the video, a voiceover of an old man is heard in the background who openly ‘criticizes’ all those who buy Serbian products with the message that they have been at war for years with Serbia. He also spreads a message implying that Kosovo Albanians are losing parts of their identity.

The video itself has reached over 3 million views and gained close to 45000 likes. The comment section was flooded with hateful, discriminatory, and insulting comments including calls for violence from both sides. Several media outlets in Kosovo shared and reported on the video, supporting the message behind it. Indeed, it is not the first time that such type of content calling for the boycott of products has been shared in the public sphere. The campaign Bojkoto 8 60 has been promoting boycotts since 2011 and it has organised several boycotting campaigns against Serbian products over the last decade. The relations between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo are sensitive with tensions starting on a top political level. When the media , promote such videos and provide a platform for their visibility, they pave the way for further tension and divide along ethnic lines.

In Montenegro, there has been a new selection of candidates for future judges of the Constitutional Court of Montenegro. During the interview, Jovanka Bogavac, who is a Member of the Parliament of Montenegro made an insulting comment in regard to ethnicity and faith of one of the candidates. Narcisa Maja Bošković identified herself as a Montenegrin of Islamic faith. However, in response to this, Bogavac reacted in an inappropriate manner by questioning Bošković’s identity and labelled the candidate’s answer as an ‘atypical case’ which should be explained by Bošković. This was reported on in numerous outlets. Bogavac’s question was also spread on social media and reported in other articles, increasing its viewership.

Within Montenegro, ethnic and religious tensions are very common, and they have been recently rising. Bogavac who is a member of the pro-Serbian nationalistic party Democratic Front should have known that this comment was both provoking and insulting, especially during a period of high political turbulence. As a member of a political party, an individual with a high position of power, influence, and audience, Bogavac should be aware of the influence her comments can have. Rather than adding fuel to the existing tensions, she could use her platform as a means of promoting inclusion and respect for diversity and plurality of religions and ethnicities.

Sexism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, and Serbia

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bisera Turković, commented on the recent decision by the President of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, to award and commemorate Vladimir Putin. Her response to his recent decision was to label it as an insult to human decency. Following her comment, Milorad Dodik responded to her by saying that “every word that comes out of her mouth is slap worthy.”

It is well known that Milorad Dodik himself and the leader of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats often use offensive, derogatory words and inflammatory language in their public addresses and speeches. Often, the individuals on the receiving end of these comments and insults, tend to be women – officials and politicians. Political leaders stand in representation of the people and hold a high position of power and influence, and should not misuse their platform to spread sexist and prejudiced comments. Such attitudes by political figures only serve to further normalise sexism and sexist language in society.

In Albania, gynecologist Shkelqim Balili appeared on Vizion Plus’ program Vizioni i Pasdites in which he made misogynistic and sexist statements regarding the position and ‘role’ of women. During the program, Balili argued that women over 30 are deemed ‘old’ with respect to childrearing, and that a woman should have at least three children. He also added that women who choose not to have children are in fact ‘withered’ – an extremely insulting label to attach to an individual who chooses not to bear children.

These statements are indeed indicative and reflective of a society in which patriarchal and sexist values and ideas prevail. They reflect a society in which the position of a woman is based solely on childbearing: if a woman chooses not to have children, and thereby not become a mother, she automatically has no value. This is extremely harmful and hateful – women and individuals in society have free will and choice to decide whether or not to have children. It is not an aspect of the woman’s life which dictates her worth. Moreover, another important aspect to highlight is the fact that having a doctor – a medical professional – making statements which are based solely on misogyny and personal opinion rather than medical proof is highly dangerous. Doctors and those who have acquired medical education hold a moral duty and responsibility to provide guidance and present medical facts rather than opinions to the public. When such views are shared by individuals who have a significant role within the society the risk of widespread sexism and misogyny becoming widely accepted by the public is high.

In Serbia, another incident of physical violence occurred in the reality show ‘Zadruga’ on TV Pink, when one of the participants attacked and attempted to strangle another contestant on the show. A video displaying the attack on the show was then posted on their official YouTube channel and currently the video itself has over 400 thousand views. This was also picked up by various tabloids who reported on the incident by sensationalising and justifying the violence, claiming that during the argument “she drove him crazy” and that then he, in reaction, “went mad and attacked her”. This incident is not an exception as violence against women in various forms including physical and psychological are a regular occurrence in reality programs which are broadcasted on TV channels with licensed national coverage and reach. During the past month, more than 10 incidents involving physical violence have occurred in ‘Zadruga’ without any consequences for neither the participants nor the broadcaster. This shows how violence is normalised in reality shows in Serbia, which have huge audiences, and completely ignored by relevant regulatory authority who has the power to react and sanction such content.

Violence against women is not an issue which can be overlooked in a society in which sexism is widespread and violence against women high. The fact that a TV channel which is broadcasted national not only allows such incidents of violence on their platforms but also promotes them on social media is both problematic and against all ethical and professional standards. Indeed, media content that “highlights and supports violence, criminal or other illegal behaviour” is prohibited by Article 47 of the Law on Electronic Media in Serbia. The regulation is constantly violated by TV Pink, and this is confirmed in the latest report by the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media. The report shows that TV Pink does not meet the requirements for a national coverage broadcaster, due to the lack of cultural, children’s, educational and documentary programs. The same report shows that TV Pink, as well as TV Happy, devote the largest part of their program (about 38%) to reality shows. The Regulatory Body for Electronic Media also filed a request to initiate a misdemeanor proceeding against TV Pink, since this broadcaster committed 493 violations of the Law on Advertising. However, this year both Pink and Happy were yet again awarded licenses for national broadcast by the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media.

Hate speech against political opponents in North Macedonia

Tensions between North Macedonia and Bulgaria have been high in the past months, however, this month they reached a new low when MEP Dzhambazki celebrated Mara Buneva, a Macedonian Bulgarian revolutionary, in the centre of Skopje, alongside dozens of his collaborators in a form of provocation. Dzhambazki has been vocal over the past few years that Macedonians are in fact Bulgarians and that all Macedonian historical figures are actually from Bulgaria. The President and the Security Institutions begin considering him a persona non grata – this translates to a person who, by decision of the host country, has been assigned a status which removes any protection of diplomatic immunity from prosecution. The security force institutions within the country claimed that they will ban all foreign nationals in the country if it is determined that they are a threat to public order, national security, or international relations. This announcement was made in response to the planned commemoration of the birth of the Macedonian revolutionary Gotse Delchev on 4 February when an organised group from Bulgaria is expected to arrive to North Macedonia.

Commenting on President Stevo Pendarovski’s proposal to declare Dzhambazki a persona non grata, in a statement for Bulgarian TV NOVA, Dzhambazki responded by reminding the North Macedonian president of the assassination of the Serbian King Aleksandar Karađorđević. This threat was made almost to insinuate that the president may end up like him. Furthermore, he said that even though he was not planning to attend the commemoration of the birth of Gotse Delchev on 4 February , following the statement of President Pendarovski “he can’t refuse such an invitation” and confirmed his plans to attend the event. This may altogether only serve as an additional provocation and hateful rhetoric between the two countries. Politicians should aim to use their power and influence to prevent the spread of hatred and ethnic discrimination, however, this is often disregarded and political positions are misused to raise tensions.

TROLL OF THE MONTH: Portal Kosovo Online

February 2, 2023

January Troll of the month is portal Kosovo Online for the denial of the Racak massacre.

The Racak massacre of 1999 saw the killing of 45 Kosovo Albanians in the village of Racak by Serbian security forces in reaction to Kosovo Liberation Army activity.

Upon hearing of the horrific events which had taken place at Racak, numerous journalists visited the site where the bodies of the victims, including minors, could be found. William Walker, head of the Kosovo Verification Mission at the time, also visited the site and declared the atrocities committed fell under crimes against humanity.

The Kosovo Verification Mission was an OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe) mission to ensure ‘compliance from all parties in Kosovo with the UN Security Council Resolution 1199 and reporting instances of progress and/or non-compliance to the OSCE Permanent Council, the United Nations Security Council, and other organisations’. The Mission opened in October 1998 and closed in June 1999. The events at Racak played a large role in NATO’s decision to organise a military operation and bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

However, despite the evidence and decision carried out by a number of international institutions condemning the massacre at Racak, Serbian officials and a large number of Serbian media both then and today deny the events having taken place.

During the 2023 commemoration of the anniversary of the massacre at Racak, William Walker attended the event as he had done in the past. However, on this occasion, online portal Kosovo Online used the opportunity to spread the position of their editor in chief who openly negated the massacre at Racak. The article was titled with an open denial of the events in Racak and its commemoration; ‘every 15^th January for the last 24 years, the old closet with falsifications of recent Kosovo history is opened’. The article goes on to negate the events which took place in that region of Kosovo. The editor of the portal, Miloš Garić openly stated that this was a ‘falsification of history’, and that the actual version of events was that Serbian forces were fighting against members of the Kosovo Liberation Army whose primary goal was to ‘take away’ Kosovo from Serbia.

Providing the platform and publishing the denial of the crimes which took place at Racak by the editor of the portal is extremely problematic. It serves to deepen division amongst society and uphold harmful narratives with little to no consideration of those who have fallen victim to such crimes. The negation and denial of war crimes and human atrocities by officials, the media and those with influence makes it almost impossible to deal with the past and acts as a barrier to a reconciliation process in the region. This altogether further drives a wedge between the two ethnic groups and prevents the establishment of better relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

Kosovo Online portal is followed by over 66,000 individuals and it is also one of the few media outlets in Serbian in Kosovo, which speaks about its position and influence. Individuals such as an editor of a portal who hold a position of power and influence over the information and stories published, should adhere to journalistic practices. Rather than providing a platform for the spread of hate and negation of war crimes, online portals and journalists should strive to adhere by certain ethical codes and journalistic practices which firstly, do not seek to harm victims of war, and secondly, do not seek to further instil division within society.

WHEN FAILURE TO ACT IS A MURDER

January 19, 2023

Impunity for all forms of gender-based violence gives rise to distrust in institutions, and encourages the repeat of violence and its culmination in femicide.

“A state that does not act is a state that kills” is one of the slogans that can be heard during the March 8 protest marches in the capital, Skopje, for the past two years.

In this way, the organizers of the protests – members of the Gender Equality Platform, which comprises 28 civil society organizations working in the field of gender equality and gender-based violence in North Macedonia, have expressed their revolt over the inaction of the institutions in cases of gender-based violence, which has resulted in several femicides in the past period.

Femicide is the killing of a woman because she is a woman, and it is the most extreme manifestation of violence against women, which is usually the result of continuous exposure to violence, and the perpetrators are usually intimate partners, family members or other persons that the victim knows. Although femicides represent a widespread and global problem that affects half of the world’s population, we are still facing insufficient political will to prevent them.

Attesting to this is the fact that there is still no universally accepted definition of femicide, which would serve as basis for further collection of basic data on its phenomenology, as well as an assessment of its prevalence.

What is femicide?

The use of the term femicide is first documented in the book A Satirical View of London at the Commencement of the Nineteenth Century by John Cory from 1801, where it is used to refer to the murder of a woman. Much later, in 1976, the term femicide was first publicly used by feminist Diana Russell, at the International Tribunal for Crimes Against Women in Brussels, in order to draw attention to discrimination and violence against women.

Russell together with Jill Redford in 1992 have defined femicide as the misogynist killing of women by men, and few years later she used the definition the killing of one or more females by one or more males because they are female.

The European Institute for Gender Equality defines femicide as the killing of a woman by an intimate partner and the death of a woman as a result of a practice that is harmful to women, whereby an intimate partner is understood as a former or current spouse or partner, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim. Moreover, for a case to be considered a femicide, there must be an implied intention to commit the murder, and a demonstrated connection between the act and gender of the victim.

The definition of femicide varies as it largely depends on the societal and cultural context, that is, the patriarchal system in which traditional gender roles are based, which rest on the inferior position of women in society. Macedonian society is characterized by a high tolerance of violence and its normalization in various spheres of life, thus contributing to the persistence of the culture of violence.

One of the most visible forms of perpetuating the culture of violence against women is through Macedonian folklore. Folk songs not only normalize female obedience to male family members, but also very often romanticize various forms of being violent towards women.

This is followed by the normalization of the killing of women, taking into account their lower social value, hence the killing of a woman, does not have the same weight as the killing of a man.

Prevalence of femicides

According to recent data, it is estimated that in 2020, worldwide, 47,000 women and girls were killed by their intimate partners or other family members, which means that, on average, every 11 minutes a woman or girl is killed in her family,confirming that the home is the least safe place for women.

Most of the victims of murders committed by an intimate partner or family member, i.e., close people whom they trust, are women, and these murders are usually the culmination of a previous experience of another form of gender-based violence, such as psychological, sexual or physical.

In North Macedonia, the majority of women (60%) believe that violence against women is a common phenomenon and a private matter (48%), which results in its normalization and contributes to the significantly low rate of its reporting, which is estimated at 2%.

In our country there is not a system that registers femicides, and according to the only data on femicides in the country of the National Network to End Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, in the period from 2001 to 2016, 32 femicides were registered, while in the period 2017 – 2020 there were 22 femicides.

According to the latest analysis, in more than 75% percent of the analysed cases of murder of women, the crime was committed by the current or former marital or common-law partner with whom the woman lived in the same household, and in more than 80% of the cases, although violence had already been present, as was testified later in the procedure by relatives of the victim, none of the victims reported it to the competent institutions. Again, the data confirms that, in our country as well, women are most often killed in their own homes.

However, in Central and South America, cases reported of femicide are dealt with differently. As a result of the prevalence of femicides in that territory, especially in the city of Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, which has caught the attention of the international community, the term feminicide used in those areas includes, among other things, the unresponsiveness of the state in relation to the murders of women. It is in these countries that femicide is legally regulated as a separate crime.

On the other hand, there is no specific definition of femicide in any of the Member States of the European Union, since the basic definition of murder is used as a starting point, taking into account the elements that each of the countries uses to more specifically define the gender-based murder of women, mostly as aggravating circumstances when classifying the crime.

Spurred by the recent femicide in Brussels, last month the Government of Belgium enacted a draft law that distinguishes between different forms of femicide and which, if adopted, will be the first explicit law regulating femicide on European soil.

Poor implementation of laws

Femicide is not recognized as a separate crime in the Macedonian Criminal Code and is instead registered like any other murder, while the domestic violence that preceded the murder is taken as an aggravating circumstance in court proceedings. At the moment, amendments to the Criminal Code are underway in order to bring it into line with the Istanbul Convention and the Law on Prevention and Protection from Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, which was enacted in 2021, but the biggest problem that remains is the implementation of the laws by the relevant institutions.

The last case of femicide that happened this August in Negotino, for which the Gender Equality Platform also reacted, illustrates the problematic implementation of the laws.

According to the statements of the proxies of the injured parties, they believe that the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office – Kavadarci has made major omissions in the investigation procedure, that is, that the prosecutor did not show any interest and minimal effort was made to provide evidence that would help ascertain the defendant’s intention to undertake such actions.

At the same time, the prosecutor did not investigate the conduct of the perpetrator before committing the crime, failing to determine that he was a person with a history of serious violent behaviour, who manifested intense jealousy towards the victim and continuously stated over the course of the week prior to the event that one day he will kill her. With all the mentioned omissions, the prosecutor also wrongly listed the crime as Serious bodily injury instead of Murder while committing domestic violence from Article 123 of the Criminal Code, which has no effect on the prevention of this type of crime, because the crime listed as such leaves room for imposing a lighter penalty.

The penal policy in the field of gender-based violence is of particular importance for the prevention of femicides.

Impunity and inadequate punishment of all forms of gender-based violence, especially femicide as its most severe form, further affects the increase of mistrust in institutions and non-reporting by victims, which, on the other hand, encourages repeat violence, with its culmination in femicide.

Therefore, it is necessary for the institutions to finally understand that it is they who have the responsibility and the power to break the vicious cycle of violence.

Author: Bojana Jovanovska

This article was originally produced for and published by Res Publica. It has been re-published here with permission.

Photo: nito/ Shutterstock