Investigative journalists got burnt by their own succes

7 years ago, a conversation about the media in Georgia would inevitably have brought up the issue of investigative journalism or rather its abolishment. Today you would rarely hear the same sentiment - investigative reporting is moving into oblivion. Scoop Caucasus' coordinator in Georgia, Akaki Gogichaishvili, gives a brief outlook on the obstacles for investigative reporting in the country.

TV journalist assaulted in Chisinau, Moldova

On July 28th, Victor Ciobanu, a journalist for Jurnalul TV in Moldova, was reporting on a copyright court case in front of the Chisinau Court of Appeals, when a person working for the Moldovan Center for Combating Economic Crimes and Corruption (CCECC) approached him, destroyed his camera and removed the memory card.

Media organisations send open letter to Ukranian president

The International Press Institute (IPI) addressed an open letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday 10 August 2010 respectfully urging him to address a disturbing deterioration in press freedom over the last six months in Ukraine.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina nobody cares about orphants when they turn 18 years. efore the war and breakup of Yugoslavia children from orphanages had priority when applying for jobs, but today that is not the case.

Poverty has obliged a lot of girls from North Albania to enter the world of illegal trafficking by marriages for a better life. This is done through “illegal” forms of “matchmaking” including an organized agency network which promises the girls a “heavenly” life.

The war about Kosovo is also taking place in cyber space! A virtual war is going on between Kosovo and Serb hackers with nationalistic attitudes. Since 1998 hundreds of attacks especially on official web-sites of Serbia and Kosovo have happened.

Ukrainian Museums are systematically robbed. The number of registered stolen pieces of art increased from 106 in the period 1984-98 to more than 1.000 from 199-2009.

Even though there only lives a little over 2 million people in Macedonia, there are more than 200 publishing houses. Why? It is a good opportunity to make money with little effort.

The Ukrainian state subsidizes local transportation in order to let senior citizens and disabled ride free of charge. So also in the city of Nikolaev in Southern Ukraine which gets more than one million hryvnas every year for this. But the contractors running the local transportation keep the money.

In the middle of a journalistic investigation of murky business practices in the port of Yalta the Ukrainian police raided the offices of the port and the apartments of port officials. So the reporter Olga Melnitskaya from Center for Investigative Journalism in Simferopol decided to publish her findings from several months research on April 9th 2010...

One morning in autumn 2009, the inhabitants of two Ukrainian villages found the public road between them closed by a new fence. A private investor had bought a large piece of land from the local council and started the construction works by fencing it – and the road – in...

The Ukrainian student Ihor Indylo did indeed have too much moonshine (homemade brandy) on 18th of May 2010 when he with friends celebrated his birthday in the dorm in Kyiv. But instead of a heavy hangover he died when he was brought to the police station for interrogation. According to the police he simply fell and first hit a wall and then the floor. The reporter Dmytro Hnap from Ukrayinska Pravda reconstructed the events. The police's explanation is to put it mildly not convincing.

Both before the election campaign and during the campaign all candidates for the Ukrainian presidency broke the law. This is the result of an investigation by the tv-program “Question of National Security” and the “Center for Investigative Journalism” in Crimea. The reporters found a large number of irregularities in the financing of the campaigns.

Smuggling seeds and bedding plants is a profitable business in Macedonia. Specific kind of seeds are being transported by donkeys on illegal crossings towards Serbia, Kosovo and Bulgaria, starting from expensive seeds for production of tomatoes and peppers, the price of which can go up to tens of thousands of euros per kilogram, to seeds for planting fruits and wine…

A classical case of money laundry, failed project and wasted budget…These are some of the comments on the controversial government project “Computer for every child”. The government hides the data on the amount of money spent for purchasing the computers and the accompanying equipment.

The number of dolphinariums is going up rapidly in Ukraine. This fact is puzzling – the Black Sea bottlenose dolphins are protected by both national and international rules. How come that they are attractions in dolphinariums and not swimming in the open sea? The reporter Olga Melnitskaya from the Center for Investigative Reporting in Simferopol, Crimea, proved that more than 20 dolphins were caught for business purposes and that the authorities didn’t – despite complaints – care.

The shelters of the victims of human trafficking in Kosovo are called Safe Houses. They support tens of victims of violence and forced prostitution. The story gives an impression of the life on these shelters, but also the situation about the measures of the authorities to rehab them.

During more than one decade, patients from Macedonia have been traveling in India, Pakistan and other countries looking for human organs. Nongovernmental organizations are warning that people living in poverty, especially from the Roma community, are selling kidneys. Unnamed Macedonian doctors were involved in several affairs, participating in illegal transplantations….. However, officially in Macedonia trade with organs - does not exist.

“Khimprom” in Vinnitsya used to be one of the major production sites in the Soviet Union. But in the years after Ukraine’s independence, it was slowly destroyed with the help of various schemes. The reporters behind the investigation, Ihor Zaykovatiy and Marina Karabay, investigated the true reasons behind them and found out that the plant’s failure was orchestrated by top government officials and big businesses in Ukraine and Russia.

Genes of bacteria, plants, and animals are injected into numerous organisms and substances. Among the most modified plants are soy, corn and potatoes. No one knows for sure what kind of effects this has on coming generations.

Many of the so-called physicians in Macedonia attract patients who cannot find cure in the official health care institutions. They then turn to alternative therapy - often dangerous – secretly performed in folk physicians' homes. They here regulate broken or displaced bones, sprained muscles. Without a single day at school, folk physicians have destroyed medicine. Some of them have even gained much fame, as they have had success with their patients.

Tuberculosis is a huge problem in Ukraine. Doctors report app. 46.000 new cases every year. One president after another and one government after another has promised to fight this disease. But as the reporter Larysa Artemenko from Telegraf discovered, almost nothing happens.

Journalist Mikhail Nazarov looks into the opaque and controversial appointment of officials in Dnepropetrovsk and Dnepropetrovsk region. He investigates the relation of party membership to promotions of officials.

More than ten years ago Ukrainian government approved the Program of provision of free access to dwelling and public objects for people with restricted physical abilities. The same programs were worked out on the local level. However state and public institutions, multi-apartment houses and other objects remain inaccessible for disabled people.

This is a story focused on the fate of Albanian children isolated because of the fear of revenge for blood feud tradition among Albanians in Kosovo. And about the lack of any attention to this category of children by the public and civil sector. It also gives an impression on the struggle of these families to cope with the isolation and ignorance.

People with spare passport also have their reserve country, which serves them as a safe place for hiding when the police gets the warrant for their arrest. Those suspected for crime in the Balkans are always well informed whether there is a ongoing investigation against them.

70 million dollars of foreign investment disappeared from local company in the matter of two years, leaving the investor to guess what had happened. The court and the other public bodies refused to disclose information that would reveal the criminal scheme. In the result of cases like this, credibility of the country as a safe place for doing business has dropped and economy suffered.

The World Bank and the Ukrainian government estimate that the total population of the country will decrease rapidly - from the present app. 46 million to 26 million in 2050. Nevertheless the Luhansk City Council in its development plan anticipates a stable population in this city in Eastern Ukraine. In an article published March 3. 2010 the reporter Konstantin Grodzinskiy from 'Realnya Gazeta 'Izhitza'' took a closer look at the discrepancies.

As a new state Armenia is struggling to both preserve its cultural heritage and to promote economic activity. So what to do when 7 million tons of copper and molybdenum ore are situated directly under ancient churches, wine factories and other historic monumemnts? Naira Bulghadaryan, reporter for the radio station 'Azatutyun', investigated the conflict.

The articles published by Novaya Gazeta about Gazprom exposing links to high ranking officials in Russia are part of a long term investigative project. Journalists in Eastern Europe collaborate cross border in gathering and analyzing information related to the private businesses of politicians.

Ukrainians are usually careless about their waste and start small unsanctioned dumps even in citycenters. The reporter Oleg Oganov found out that removal of domestic waste from the 500.000 inhabitants is a highly profitable business in the South-Ukrainian city Mykolaiv – and that politicians and bureaucrats do their very best to keep that as a secret... PS You shouldn’t wonder: The town was founded 1789 by the notorious prince Grigori Potemkin.

Two years ago the Sevastopolskaya Gazeta reporter Tatyana Rikhtun investigated the present whereabouts of dangerous asbestos removed from the famous liner United States. Her research showed that it has been stored in unsafe containers in Inkerman since 1994. With the Norwegian reporter Erik Hagen she later took another look: The asbestos is still there. The two reporters also found that abrasives included 18 kinds of dangerous substances including cadmium, manganese, lead, mercury and arsenic.

The dark number of children victim of sexual crimes in Macedonia is much bigger then the official one.

Feel like trying a local sausage down at the farmers’ market? Perhaps you should think twice, if you’re in the Azerbaijani town of Sheki, where there’s an uncannily high ratio of serious infections from meat sold at the market. Local journalist Mehriban Aliyeva set out to investigate what’s wrong down at the market.

Gasoline from Ukrainian filling stations is of low quality and very often consumers even get less than they pay for. That's the result of research done by the journalist Oleh Vasylevskiy from the Agency for Journalistic Investigations which has been published in Informator in Lviv in its November 20.-26./2009 issue. Many Ukrainians claim that their cars break down because of low quality fuel, and the samples taken by Mr. Vasylevskiy and sent to a private lab confirm their suspicion. The state...

The European football championship Euro-2012 has developed into a corruption scheme in the Ukrainian city Lviv. The journalist Ihor Chayka investigated the matter from November 2007 to May 2009 for the TV-documentary ‘The Geideonius of the City’.

Politicians and their agencies claim that they are fighting for future generations: No cigarettes and no alcohol can be sold to juveniles next to schools. But, as the Rivne Agency of Investigative Reporting found in an investigation, they don't care and - when informed - they don't act.

In the Ukranian town of Rivne a team of investigative reporters took a closer look at the municipal housing companies with a total of 52.961 apartments. The managers and their staff do a poor job: Of the 52.961 tenants only 40.468 have a contract for their home, all companies have huge deficits due to neglecting unpaid rents and the maintenace of the buildings is poor.

Vasyl Tun cannot be found anymore. But the police constable, who should watch the former drug addict, managed to buy his house for a very moderate sum. The more the reporter Viktoria Doskoch from the newspaper Pohlyad, Chernitsi, looked into the matter the more mystified. There is a grave with a cross and the name Vasyl Tun. But is he really dead? Things are certainly not what they seem to be.

Although the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest, the longest-living European easy tune music contest, clearly state that “no political or similar associations are allowed” at “hilly Balkans”, hardly anyone held to the postulates since the beginning of this manifestation in 1956 until today.

Three former police officers, three stories shrouded in mystery, protectionism and corruption. Alexandru Covali, alias “Shalun”, who was the head of a network of trafficking in women and minors, worked in the police force of the Soviet Union. From 2001 until 2006, he made a fortune through a human trafficking network ...

When it comes to murky deals and secret contracts the former Moldovan government is - as documented by the investigative journalists Dumitru Lazur and Vitalie Calugareanu in Jurnal de Chişinãu in December 2009 - in a league of its own. At the center of the investigation is the oil terminal in Giurgiulesti at the river Danube...

Local politics in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchug is not about politics at all, but about money and how to get hold of it. The investigative reporter Larysa Artemenko took a closer look at the management of 1.187 publicly owned buildings and the city halls it-systems for receiving payments.

In the small village of Syuniq in Southern Armenia Armeza Stepanyan and many other women are ill. After years of suffering there has finally been scientific research. Now she and everybody else in the village know the reason: Their gardens and fields are heavily polluted.

While pricey restaurants in Berlin or Amsterdam serve fresh asparagus plucked from fields in the Czech Republic, none of the appreciative diners has the slightest idea that this much-loved item is only on their dinner plates thanks to the backbreaking work carried out by modern-day slaves – men and women lured from poor countries on false pretences and then held captive – beaten and threatened by armed guards if they ask for food, their wages or try to escape.

At the beginning of 2008 Azerbaijan introduced free health care service in all the country’s hospitals. But there still is a nagging suspicion that doctors and nurses demand payment in the form of bribes to treat patients. Azeri journalist Nijat Daglar let himself hospitalize twice to check out the facts.

SAGEM, the French company, has won a bid to produce Albanian passports and ID cards, in a tendering marred by irregularities. Indeed, in the past four years, companies hired to consult the government organizing the bid and preparing its terms of reference had been changed four times. Last month, the terms of reference themselves were changed completely leaving many companies at a loss…

Cigarette smuggling along the Kosovo-Albania border is done both from Albania into Kosovo and from Kosovo into Albania. Smuggled cigarettes mostly travel from Montenegro into Kosovo and Albania. Police and prosecutors in the Peja region of western Kosovo say this traffic is handled by organized crime because the smuggled cigarettes are not prodiced in Montenegro, but in countries like Austria, Croatia, Bosnia and others…

This has been going on for a while. Given the reputation of the north of the country for wild laws, some people who leave Albania illegally as emigrants apply for political asylum in the West citing the unofficial vendetta rules as a reason. The proof they offer: articles printed in Albanian media. What is not that clear is that this is suspected to have turned into a system, where the interested emigrant pays the editor of small papers, a conflict is invented, and this stands in Western...

The sole administrator of two joint companies which have Sorin Ovidiu Vintu among the shareholders has been under arrest in the Chisinau penitentiary for several months, for theft. Four years ago, when the same administrator was a newcomer among Vintu’s groupies, he was apprehended by the police. Again it was theft, again in Chisinau.

On the same counters at the Old Bazaar market where merchandise is sold you can find meat from Brazil. This meat - not at all meeting the standards for hygiene - has entered Macedonia illegally. As it is sold there, on the counters, it is not labelled, and there is not a single sign of its origin.

Macedonia’s campaign “The Day of the tree” is being organized for the fourth time. The idea of gathering people, while planting trees is excellent, but bad laws, old cadastre segregation of woods and pastures, non-equipment of the state institutions are preventing the project from working well - and it is expensive...

Illegal fishing of carps and catfishes only in Dojran and Prespa Lakes (Macedonia) is exciding 50 tons yearly. An uncontrolled and unsustainable use of natural resources is taking place in the Western Balkans. Trough their research conducted in Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Montenegro, a group of reporters try to figure out where and how these illegal activates are conducted and by whom.