The president of Kosovo, officially the president of the Republic of Kosovo, is the head of state of the Kosovo. The president is elected indirectly, by the parliament, in a secret ballot by a two-thirds majority of deputies in functions. If no candidate achieves a two-thirds majority, at the third ballot the candidate who receives a simple majority is elected. The vote in the parliament should take place no later than a month before the end of the incumbent president's term of office. The president serves for a five-year term, renewable once.
Željko Kopanja was a Bosnian newspaper editor and director of the newspaper Nezavisne Novine. The Christian Science Monitor described him as an equal critic of all parties without regard to ethnicity and "probably the most feared journalist in Bosnia and Herzegovina." On August 8, 2016 Željko Kopanja died from a cardiac arrest.
On 25 May 1995, the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) launched an artillery attack against the town of Tuzla, which left 71 dead and 240 wounded. The event is also known as the Tuzla massacre.
Ljube Boškoski is a Macedonian politician and former Minister of Internal Affairs of Macedonia.
Bal-Can-Can is a 2005 Macedonian-Italian joint production film about a deserter who travels throughout the Balkans as a political immigrant in search of his dead mother-in-law who is wrapped in a carpet.
Balkan Insight is a website of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) that focuses on news, analysis, commentary and investigative reporting from southeast Europe. It is run by journalists in southeast Europe. BIRN was founded in 2004 as a network of non-governmental organisations to promote a strong, independent, and free media in Southern and Eastern Europe. Balkan Insight is the successor of BIRN's "Balkan Crisis Report" newsletter. BI reports from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Moldova, Romania and Serbia.
The Smilkovci Lake killings also called the Smilkovci Lake massacre, was the killing of five ethnic Macedonian civilians that took place on 12 April 2012. They were shot and killed at a man-made lake near the village of Smilkovci, outside the Macedonian capital Skopje. According to the Macedonian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the attack was carried out with the intent to "incite fear and insecurity" and the ministry called it a "deliberate terrorist act aimed at destabilizing the country". The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights criticised the ministry for prematurely judging the suspects as guilty.
The Batajnica mass graves are mass graves that were found in 2001 near Batajnica, a suburb of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The graves contained the bodies of 744 Kosovar Albanians civilians that were killed during the Kosovo War. The mass graves were found on the training grounds of the Yugoslav Special Anti-Terrorist Unit (SAJ). Dead bodies were brought to the site by trucks from Kosovo; most were incinerated before burial. After the war, SAJ restricted investigators' access to the firing range, and continued live-firing exercises whilst forensic teams tried to investigate the massacre.
Operation Mountain Storm was carried out on 7 November 2007 by special police forces of the Republic of Macedonia against an armed ethnic Albanian group in the Šar Mountains of Brodec above Tetovo region.
Miodrag Živković was a Serbian sculptor and university professor. He is well-known for his work on memorial complexes throughout Yugoslavia.
Lindita Nikolla is an Albanian retired politician who served as the Speaker of the Parliament from September 10, 2021 until her retirement from politics on July 28, 2024. Previously she served as the Minister of Education, Sports and Youth in September 2013 until May 2017, where she temporarily handed over the post to Mirela Karabina as part of a pre-election agreement between the position and the opposition. Nikolla was appointed again Minister of Education, Sports and Youth in September 2017 until 2019.
Censorship in Serbia is prohibited by the Constitution. Freedom of expression and of information are protected by international and national law, even if the guarantees enshrined in the laws are not coherently implemented. Instances of censorship and self-censorship are still reported in the country.
Censorship in Serbia is prohibited by the Serbian constitution. Freedom of expression and of information are protected by international and national law, even if the guarantees enshrined in the laws are not coherently implemented. However, instances of censorship and self-censorship have been reported; as of 2015 Serbia was deemed "partly free" as judged by Freedom House and ranked 59th out of 180 countries in the 2016 Press Freedom Index report compiled by Reporters Without Borders. According to the 2015 Freedom House report, media outlets and journalists in Serbia have been subject to pressure from politicians and owners over editorial contents. Also, Serbian media have been heavily dependent on advertising contracts and government subsidies which make journalists and media outlets exposed to economic pressures, such as payment defaults, termination of contracts and the like.
The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) is a non-profit organisation that promotes, protects and defends the right to a free media and freedom of expression throughout Europe. It was founded in 2015 as a watchdog of the European Charter on Freedom of the Press. The vision of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom is a society where media freedom enables open discourse and everyone can seek, receive and impart information. The main activities of the ECPMF are monitoring press and media freedom violations, advocacy and practical help for journalists, such as legal support and a "journalists-in-residence" programme, and engaging diverse stakeholders across Europe.
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa is a think tank and online newspaper based in Trento, Italy, and specialised on South East Europe.
Access to public information and freedom of information (FOI) refer to the right to access information held by public bodies also known as "right to know". Access to public information is considered of fundamental importance for the effective functioning of democratic systems, as it enhances governments' and public officials' accountability, boosting people participation and allowing their informed participation into public life. The fundamental premise of the right to access public information is that the information held by governmental institutions is in principle public and may be concealed only on the basis of legitimate reasons which should be detailed in the law.
eQualitie is a Canadian digital security organisation focused on the development and distribution of free, open-source software, services and security training to civil society, NGO's, investigative journalists and independent media to protect and promote human rights and press freedom online. The group is based in Montreal, Canada.
Centre for Nonviolent Action is a peace organization focused on building sustainable peace in the region of former Yugoslavia. It was founded in 1997 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and expanded to Belgrade, Serbia in 2001. The organisation's main objective is to promote nonviolence and dialogue through trust-building among people from the region as well as a constructive approach to dealing with the past.
Xhezair Shaqiri, also known as Commander Hoxha, is a Macedonian politician of Albanian descent, former member of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and commander of the National Liberation Army (NLA).
