Monthly Monitoring Highlights – August 2026

During the month of August, the RDN monitoring team identified a range of hateful narratives and discourse glorifying war criminals, unprofessional reporting and direct attacks on journalists and the public.  Glorification of war criminal Ratko Mladić in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia This month marked the death of war criminal Ratko Mladić during his imprisonment in the …

Troll of the Month: Media outlet Sinjali

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 Balkan region.

PSE, SI GAZETARE, PROTESTOVA KUNDËR NJË MEDIUMI?

Dje, më 17 gusht, iu bashkova një grupi protestuesish që ishin mbledhur para zyrave të mediumit online “Sinjali” në Prishtinë. Gazetarët i kanë përjetuar protestat kryesisht nga ana tjetër, me bllok në dorë, mjaftueshëm afër për të dëgjuar dhe mjaftueshëm larg për të mos u llogaritur, ndërsa dje isha brenda grupit, dhe për herë të …

Monthly Monitoring Highlights – July

During the month of July, the RDN monitoring team identified a range of hateful narratives and discourse including sexism and misogyny, disinformation and hate speech and a range of unprofessional reporting from hate speech towards minors to historical revisionism.  Relativisation and revisionism in Bosnia and Herzegovina The 11th of July marked the 31st anniversary of the genocide …

The erosion of media freedom in Kosovo

New report outlines backsliding in press freedom and the urgent remedies needed to change course. Four years ago, a coalition of the world’s leading press freedom organizations conducted a fact-finding mission in Kosovo to assess the climate for media freedom. They left with a cautiously optimistic message. The 2022 mission found a country that, while far …

Remembering what is shared

In Kosovo, preserving the history of exchange among communities is an act of anti-ethnonationalist resistance and hope. As a child, searching for depictions of my homeland in the diaspora were always coloured by the persistent portrayal that Albanians and Serbs were forever at odds. Every headline seemed to reinforce the same narrative: our communities were …

Monthly Monitoring Highlights – June

During the month of June, the RDN monitoring team identified a range of hateful narratives and discourse on ethnic and religious grounds alongside attacks on journalists and professionals and anti-LGBTQI+ sentiments. Attack on journalists in Serbia and Montenegro The month of June for Serbia was one marked by a heightened number of attacks on journalists. One involved journalist Kristina …

Monthly Monitoring Highlights – May

During the month of May, the RDN monitoring team identified a range of hateful narratives and discourse driven by sexism and misogyny, alongside hate speech and intolerance, denial of war crimes and misinformation.  Bullying and misogyny on reality TV in Albania During the last days of April and the beginning of May 2026, the reality TV program “Ferma …

Beyond Ethnic Binaries: Queering Peacebuilding

When a Kosovo Albanian drag queen stepped onto the stage at Belgrade Pride in 2019, the moment carried more political meaning than many formal dialogue initiatives. Nervous about how a Serbian audience would react to an Albanian performer from Kosovo, Diva — one of Kosovo’s first drag performers — carefully chose an Albanian pop song …