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SENSATIONALIST MEDIA COVERAGE DEHUMANIZES EDONA JAMES
CLICKBAIT ARTICLES ARE UNETHICAL AND HARMFUL FOR THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY. While sitting at a restaurant in Prishtina this past winter, I overheard a conversation between two waiters. Their discussion was difficult to ignore. “I understand that people are free to live however they want,” said one of the waiters, “but how should we explain it …
WHO’S AFRAID OF UNMARRIED MOTHERS?
GENDERED DISINFORMATION HAS PLAGUED THE DEBATE ABOUT KOSOVO’S IVF DRAFT LAW. In a TV debate in February 2024, Ferid Agani, Kosovo’s former health minister, declared that “A woman without a partner is mentally unstable.” Agani said this in reference to unmarried women who have a child through in vitro fertilization (IVF) with an unknown donor, as the Draft Law …
TROLL OF THE MONTH: Journalist Darko Momić Čkalja
The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, group of individuals or media outlet that spreads hate based on gender, ethnicity, religion or other categories of diversity. The Balkan Troll is selected on the basis of hate speech incidents identified throughout the Western Balkans region. In a column written by journalist Darko Momić Čkalja …
WE ONLY HAVE EACH OTHER
THE POLICE PRESENCE ON MARCH 8 WAS AN ATTEMPT TO SUPPRESS FEMINIST PROTEST. In early March 2024, the MARShojmë S’Festojmë collective announced that it would hold a protest on March 8, International Women’s Day. The organizers of the march, which has been organized annually since 2016, decided that this year they would march for each …
Monthly Monitoring Highlights April: femicides, genocide denials and hatred aimed towards journalists
Throughout the month of April, the RDN monitoring team has detected a range of hateful narratives and discourse. This month, we have seen hatred based on gender, ethnicity, and hatred against journalists. Femicide in Kosovo In Kosovo, two femicides took place in the month of April over a period of less than a week. At …
TROLL OF THE MONTH: Ninoslav Cmolić, Head of the Criminal Police Directorate, Serbia
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 Balkans region. Ninoslav Cmolić, the Head of the Criminal Police Directorate, was …
WHEN MEDICAL STUDENTS APOLOGISE – THE IMPACT OF THE ANTI-GENDER MOVEMENT IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE
How the anti-gender movement, supported by American and Russian Christian organisations, incite fear and hatred in the public discourse under the pretense of defending “family values” In April 2024, the Macedonian Medical Student Association (MMSA) announced on Facebook that the Faculty of Medicine of the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University (UKIM) in Skopje will host …
RESPONSE TO THE SREBRENICA RESOLUTION: GENOCIDE DENIAL AND HATE SPEECH
The National Assembly of RS adopted conclusions that deny genocide. Denying the genocide in Srebrenica, relativizing war crimes, and using insulting messages and hate speech are the messages that have been coming from the Bosnian entity Republika Srpska (RS) recently. An announcement that the draft Resolution on the genocide committed in Srebrenica will be on …
REGIONAL MEDIA MONITORING: Ethnicity and gender identity remain the main targets of hate speech as political targeting is on the rise
Reporting Diversity Network has been continuously conducting media monitoring of hate speech on a regional level for almost four years. Our latest set of reports show findings from May 2022 until December 2023. Gender identity and ethnicity remain the most targeted identities, as more than half of all recorded cases across the region referred to …