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Challenges and problems of whistleblowers in Macedonia

Goran Lefkov Former and current whistleblowers were present at the panel on the problems and challenges of whistleblowers in Macedonia. Aleksandar Bozhinovski, founder and one of the pioneers of whistleblowing in the non-governmental sector, opened the debate by describing the closeness between whistleblowers and journalists, especially investigative journalists. As a long-time investigative journalist, he emphasized that his experience had shown that without whistleblowers almost no major journalistic research would...

The benefit of the whistleblowers’ heroic deeds

Goran Lefkov The benefits of the whistleblowers’ deeds are enormous. They save both time and money and resources of law enforcement agencies. In some cases they have far-reaching benefits, as was the case with Gjorgji Lazarevski and Zvonko Kostovski. With their heroism, an entire country managed to get rid of a dictatorship. There was a similar session on the World Whistleblowers Day organized in Skopje. The Coordinator of Southeast...

EU Whistleblowing Directive and amendments to domestic legislation

Goran Lefkov In 2019 the European Union adopted a new directive on whistleblowing and whistleblowers’ protection. That directive prescribes special conditions for whistleblowers’ protection in various areas of daily life. An interesting point in this session was that more than half of the speakers in this session were people who have been through whistleblowing as a process. Some of them before the adoption of the whistleblower law in 2015,...

National Whistleblower Day 2022

Goran Lefkov Center for Investigative Journalism SCOOP Macedonia and the Youth Educational Forum jointly organized the Whistleblower Day on May 12 and 13 this year. The first day a conference was held on whistleblowing and challenges for the future, while the second day the youth organized motivational speeches on whistleblowers. The conference was opened by the EU Ambassador to North Macedonia David Gere, starting with a joke on his...

Whistleblowing – a new step in the Macedonian struggle for a better future

Goran Lefkov Whistleblowing as a phenomenon gives a strong impetus to the fight against corruption and contributes to better democratic governance. There were forms of whistleblowing in our country in the past as well. The difference between then and now is that today whistleblowing is regulated by law. The most famous case of whistleblowing is the case of Gjorgji Lazarevski and Zvonko Kostovski. They are the people who had...

TWO GI REPORTS HIGHLIGHT “ORGANIZED CORRUPTION” IN THE WESTERN BALKANS

Two new reports released today as part of the Global Initiative’s ‘Infrastructure of Integrity’ series look at the phenomenon of ‘organized corruption’ in the Western Balkans and monitor implementation of the anti-corruption pledges that governments of the region made in the framework of the Berlin Process. GENEVA, Switzerland – 3 May 2021: At the London Summit of the Berlin Process in 2018, governments of the Western Balkans pledged to...

A year after SCOOP’s warning: the government will be saving the UEFA Super Cup

Last night the Government of the Republic of Macedonia announced that there were serious failures in the realization of the undertaken obligations to host the UEFA Super Cup at the Arena “Filip II” so the organization of the big event in Skopje has been questioned. It results from the letter that UEFA delivered to the Football Federation of Macedonia. In fact, this is UEFA’s new letter. The first one was...

SCOOP-Macedonia: Part of a Global Movement to Support Investigative Journalism

By David E. Kaplan Global Investigative Journalism Network       As the world entered the 21st Century, the Internet Age hit with full force, and the impact on journalism was fierce. Commercial media was clobbered by two blows. First came the loss of advertising revenue, as print and broadcast ads either went online, for much cheaper, or vanished entirely. And then in 2007 came the global recession, which...