Reporters Without Borders

With the announcement of the Nobel Prize winner in medicine, the unusual season of 2019 begins, in which two literature recipients will also be awarded and during the speculations that Greta Thunberg may be grabbing the Peace Prize.

The first prize is already announced.

Journalists gathered on Monday in the Bosnian capital to demand an end to violence against reporters, two days after the news website Radiosarajevo.ba reported that group of hooligans had forced their way into their office and threatened journalists into retracting an article.

Reporters Without Borders said in a statement on Tuesday that a series of threatening messages sent to Croatian journalists recently were intended "to attack, intimidate and smear journalists to the point of dissuading them from pursuing their mission to report the news".

Bulgarian TV host and singer Slavi Trifonov is launching a new political movement and his own TV station in September, he announced on Wednesday, on the last episode of his signature TV show, Slavi's Show, aired on bTV, Bulgaria's largest TV channel.

Democracy is on a knife edge in Central and Southeast Europe as authoritarian alternatives enter the mainstream and populists erode vital checks and balances on power — not least free media.

Romanian law enforcement officers and prosecutors on Wednesday raided the national Police Academy in search of an officer who allegedly threatened an investigative journalist with death.

Photo: Wikimedia/Narih Lee

The latest report by Reporters Without Borders published on Thursday noted significant declines over the past year in levels of press freedom in Serbia, Albania and Moldova while the situation was improving in North Macedonia, Croatia and Kosovo.

Bulgaria remains at 111th place in media freedom. This was made clear by the annual Freedom of the Press Index, announced by the international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders.

The Higher Court in Podgorica on Tuesday sentenced investigative journalist Jovo Martinovic to one and a half years in prison for alleged drug trafficking and membership in a criminal organisation.

Martinovic told BIRN that the verdict was politically motivated and not based on facts.

The European Federation of Journalists, European Centre for Press & Media Freedom, PEN International and Reporters Without Borders criticised on Wednesday new restrictive laws on online media in Albania.

The laws were proposed by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama as part of his drive against "defamation".