HOMOPHOBIA AND SEXISM IN THE WESTERN BALKANS: December monthly monitoring highlight

Throughout the month of December, the RDN monitoring team has detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. During this month there has been a rise in hate speech including homophobia, ethnic discrimination and sexism across the Western Balkan. Homophobia A member of the opposition PDP party in Republika Srpska, Ivan Begić, resigned following the …

HATE SPEECH BASED ON ETHNICITY AND SEXISM IN THE WESTERN BALKANS: November onthly monitoring highlight

Throughout the month of November, the RDN monitoring team has detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. During this month there has been a rise in hate speech including sensationalism, ethnic discrimination and sexism across the Western Balkans. Insensitive reporting in Albania Recently a headline emerged in Shiqiptarja.com reading “Horror in Fier/A 38-year-old kidnaps …

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN SERBIA: Media are missing the chance to educate the public

For a long time now, every November 25th on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, citizens in Serbia have been hearing about devastating numbers that tell us just how bad the situation is when it comes to gender-based violence. It seems that the number of citizens who condemn this situation publicly, …

TROLL OF THE MONTH: Member of the Parliament of Montenegro, Slaven Radunović

The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate on the internet based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkans region. Our November Troll of the Month is …

Quo vadis, Serbia?

How did the defenders of Serbia’s shameful past get the right to paint murals of war criminals?How did we get to the point of considering activists as rioters and arresting them? In commemoration of the International Day against Fascism on November 9, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Serbia announced that it would paint …

TROLL OF THE MONTH: A private group on Facebook who shared inappropriate photos of underage Roma girls

The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate on the internet based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkans region. Our October Troll of the Month is …

MATTEL’S GENDER-NEUTRAL DOLLS CREATE STIR IN THE SERBIAN MEDIA

In late 2019, Mattel, a USA toy company, launched “world’s first gender-neutral doll”. Recently, the Creatable World doll became available in Serbia and some of the most influential media in the country reported on it. Some also created a platform to discuss the changes gender inclusive toys will bring to our society. The Serbian media …

BEING TRANS IN SERBIA: THE MEDIA’S SILENCE

Serbia seems to have built a wall of silence around the trans community. This approach is flawed in many aspects, especially as some from the trans community report it can have detrimental consequences. “Gender is one aspect of our identity and it is defined as one’s innermost concept of self as a man or a …

REPORTING DIVERSITY Training of Trainers – Call for Participants

WHEN: 11-13 November 2021 WHERE: Belgrade, Serbia Reporting Diversity Network 2.0 is inviting CSOs; grass-root activists; human rights defenders; journalists; editors; to attend the Reporting Diversity training of trainers. The training will take place in Belgrade, between 11-13 November and will gather 30 participants from across the Western Balkans.The organisers will ensure all necessary epidemiological …