As Kosovo gets closer to Council of Europe membership, bringing access to the ECHR, experts tell BIRN that it must take notes from Croatia’s mistakes in conducting war crime trials without the presence of defendants. The European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, ruled in February 2015 that Croatia did not give former Serb paramilitary Mile…
Germany has described Kosovo’s latest move to secure Council of Europe membership this week as insufficient, saying the ‘heavy lifting’ it had expected ‘has still not happened’ Kosovo’s government made a final push on Thursday to convince Western countries to include its Council of Europe application on the agenda for the organisation’s ministerial meeting on…
Kurti and members of his cabinet joined hundreds of people who gathered at the war memorial in Qyshk/Cuska to commemorate 138 Albanian civilians killed in 1999by Serbian forces in the village and in three neighbouring settlements, Lubeniq/Ljubenic, Pavlan/Pavljan, Zahaq/Zahac. Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti speaks at the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the massacre…
BIRN journalists Jeta Xharra and Mediana Halili were recognized by the D4D Institute for their reporting on discrimination against women at Radio Television of Kosova regarding leadership positions. BIRN journalists Jeta Xharra and Mediana Halili were awarded second prize by the Democracy for Development, D4D, institute on Tuesday for their investigative reporting exposing discrimination against…
The Kosovo Anti-Corruption Agency claims that, despite identifying significant wealth among public officials, courts and prosecutors have failed to take decisive action such as asset confiscation or thorough investigation of criminal complaints. Hundreds of public officials annually report their wealth to the Kosovo Anti-Corruption Agency, APK, yet the justice authorities have not carried out any…
Some of the University of Prishtina medical faculty students, who demanded the dismissal of the mathematics professor on sexual harassment claims, are facing a denigrating campaign on social media, with the surface of several accounts in support of the professor. Some University of Prishtina students are facing a smear online campaign as different social media…
Kosovo’s second population census since the war is facing significant challenges such as mass resignation of registrars, a lack of informative campaigns , and boycotts by residents of Serbian-majority municipalities. Kosovo is also attempting to register its diaspora, including those not born in the country. Kosovo’s Agency of Statistics said on Monday that over 1.4…
A documentary produced in Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro explores the scale of Kremlin-backed disinformation in these countries and its dangerous influence on the public. [embedded content] A Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN, documentary, launched on Friday, shows how Western Balkan countries audiences have become vulnerable to disinformation from Russian-backed channels, especially since the start of…
German ambassador Jorn Rohde told BIRN in an interview on Thursday that Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti should not have been surprised that Germany and France asked Kosovo to send the draft statute of the long-delayed Serb municipality body to the Constitutional Court for approval as a prerequisite for membership of the Council of Europe.“I…
Kosovo officials claimed that the governmental websites had come under attack from Russian hackers because of the country’s support for Ukraine’s self-defence. A Kosovo government spokesperson told BIRN that Russian hackers targeted official websites on Tuesday and Wednesday. “We were informed by the relevant institutions that some government websites have been the target of DDoS…