BIRN has identified a handful of self-proclaimed ‘expert’ security organisations in Serbia that promote the police, military and right-wing tropes while enjoying ties to the country’s ruling party.
The far-right is creating a ‘them against us’ narrative in the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to pick up followers and spread hate. And Balkan states are not immune, according to the findings of a BIRN investigation.
Delays and design errors have cost Serbia tens of millions of dollars in the process of upgrading the rail connection between Belgrade to Budapest, BIRN can reveal.
Bosnian engineering giant Energoinvest, which built the electricity interconnection line between Albania and Kosovo, paid millions of euros to a small UAE-based consultancy headed by an Albanian businessman with political connections, documents show.
They like patriotic rallies and patrolling the streets. They dislike vaccines, migrants and “the system”. And they have the support of one in 10 Serbs on Facebook.
Court records in Bosnia reveal that prominent members of Serb nationalist Chetnik organisations have been charged with war crimes, while the Bosnian Security Ministry has warned that such groups are extremists who could pose a security risk.