Troll of the Month: Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania
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. Escalating political tensions in Albania marked this month as anti-corruption …
Criminal charges against journalists are an attack on press freedom
The Reporting Diversity Network expresses its full solidarity with investigative journalists Đurđa Radulović and Andrea Perišić from the Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG). The two journalists, also long-time contributors to RDN‘s work, are now facing criminal charges filed by Ivica Janović, Director of the Montenegrin Agency for National Security (ANB). The charges came after CIN-CG published an investigative piece in which the two journalists examined …
Born as a guest: The unwritten code denying Albanian daughters their heritage
In many Albanian families, the question of inheritance is not decided in courtrooms or by law, but around kitchen tables quietly, almost automatically. Daughters are often left out of these conversations, not because the law excludes them, but because tradition does. For generations, it has been widely accepted that a girl does not truly “belong” to …
Why women in Bosnia and Herzegovina are still afraid of having property in their name
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, women have equal rights to property, at least on paper. In practice, many renounce it. Not because they must, but because they believe they should. This is confirmed by the long-term experience of Lana Jajčević, a legal advisor at the United Women’s Foundation from Banja Luka, who has been working with …
TROLL OF THE MONTH – SELECTION CRITERIA
The goal of the Reporting Diversity Network 2.0 monitoring is to identify and document the most significant cases (‘incidents’) of hate speech and divisive discourses in the Western Balkans media. Incidents are defined by the speaker regardless of where they occurred, but monitoring refers to their media coverage. They can originate in the Parliament, party …
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 …
Troll of the Month: Žana Mihaljević
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. On 18 May 2026, the Montenegrin media outlet Vijesti published …
Monthly Monitoring Highlights – April
During the month of April, the RDN monitoring team identified a range of hateful narratives and discourse driven by hatred towards people with disabilities, political opponents and journalists, alongside sexism, xenophobia and misogyny. Sexism and misogyny in Albania and North Macedonia On 20 April 2026, Klan TV aired an episode of “Shije Shtëpie” featuring a …
