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Serbia: Monitoring the Elections Via Citizen Media

Rayna St. — Sun, 06 May 2012 23:06:37 +0000

Six countries in Europe have been voting on May 6, 2012, amongst which are France, electing its new President, Greece, voting for a new parliament, and Serbia. The latter is at “its most important election” since Slobodan Milosevic was demised in 2000: nearly 7 million of the Serbian citizens eligible to vote will elect the president, the parliament and various municipal and provincial governors, choosing amongst 18 lists [sr] for seats in the parliament and 12 candidates [sr] running for the head of state.

The preliminary polls in Serbia were showing low participation, and various blogs have echoed the bitter irony and disillusionment with the perspective of this crucial election taking place within the hammering pervasive austerity that has spead all over Europe. The May 6 elections will have a decisive say on Serbia's relations with the European Union, as well as with Kosovo, whose independence Serbia refuses to recognize.

A campaign flyer during the pre-electoral silence period. Image from user Zoltan Dognar on Twitter

The main fight seems to be between Tomislav Nikolic (the Serbian Progressive Party, or SNS, the opposition) and the current president Boris Tadic (the Democratic Party, DS). The political positions of the two candidates are quite similar regarding the EU, although the situation in the region would not be comfortable if Nikolic won: Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina still consider him the heir of his political mentor, Vojislav Seselj, an ultranationalist and the former president of the Serbian Radical Party, currently on trial for war crimes at The Hague.

With the recent flawed elections in other countries, Serbians were concerned for the transparency of their election process. In order to prevent fraud, an Ushahidi-based election crowdmap has been set up to allow abuse reports to be filled in. The initiative Digitalni Glas Srbije (”Digital Voice of Serbia”) [sr] was launched to monitor, aggregate and echo reactions prior to and on the election day.

Very few blogs have been publishing content on the election day itself, but Twitter was babbling with reactions, pictures and discussions, using the hashtags #izbori (”elections”), #izbori2012, #srbija (”Serbia”).

In an attempt to account for regularity, an initiative [sr] directed by the Serbian Medija Centar (”Media Center”) was aimed at monitoring how well the pre-electoral silence was observed. Political parties are prohibited from campaining during the two days immediately preceding the election day itself.

Thus, the pre-electoral silence started on Thursday, May 3, at midnight, and two reports [sr] were issued using various metrics. Their repeated calls to fellow citizens to report any infringements of this rule were followed by a number of pictures circulated through Twitter and showing illegal campaining.

Also on Twitter, youth disillusionment has been reflected:

@DunjaLazic:sutra su dakle prvi izbori na kojima mogu da glasam a baš i nemam neki izbor

So tomorrow will be held the first election where I can vote, but I just do not have any choice

Pro-SNS texts and irony. Image by user Bildi13 on Twitter

Such opinions were posted along with others [sr] discussing the relevance of the pre-electoral silence. Also, it turned out that various parties have been sending text messages to citizens' mobile phones during the pre-electoral silence:

Dragi sugrajdani, jedino sto je potrebno Srbiji so PROMENE. Srpska napredna stanka to moze doneti. Zajedno pokrenimo Srbiju. Izadji i glasaj!

Dear fellow citizens, the only thing Serbia needs are CHANGES. The Serbian Progressive Party can deliver that. Let's move Serbia together. Get out and vote!

This type of illegal campaining has been reported to be very frequent from SNS's side - and people reacted with sarcasm: one user replied to the invitation to vote for the SNS saying that “even Seselj got a text message from the progressives.”

Many Twitter users were also arguing about the respective candidates and their influence on politics if elected [ru]:

@VladMiskovic: Још само четири сата до пада ЕУ режима у Србији! Гласајте против ЕУ окупације Србије, гласајте за @srpski_radikali! #izbori #izbori2012

Only four more hours until the fall of the EU's regime in Serbia! Vote against the EU occupation of Serbia, vote for @srpski_radikali!

Global Voices Author Sasa Milosevic replied to this call to vote for the Serbian Radical Party [sr]:

@journalist92: @VladMiskovic @srpski_radikali . Srpski radikali ce da nas izvuku. Glas za njih znaci glas za oruzje, ratove, krvoprolice i Srbiju u mraku

@VladMiskovic @srpski_radikali Serbian Radicals that will get us out. A vote for them means a vote for guns, wars, bloodshed, and Serbia [drowned] in the dark

Numerous pictures on Twitter also showed a huge number of annulled ballots: very often, a small, rapidly penned Batman was indicated as the candidate of choice, but hand-written “Pirate Party” or “The Internets” have also been reported.

During the whole day, the levels of participation were announced [sr] by the Centre for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID) and preliminary results from the diaspora were circulated on Twitter:

@NMojovic: rezultati iz toronta i čikaga: Tadić 48, Koštunica 37, Glišić 33, Nikolić 16, J. Šešelj 12, Dačić 8, Jovanović 7, Stanković 5 #izbori

Results from Toronto and Chicago: Tadic 48%, Kostunica 37, Glisic 33, Nikolic 16, J. Seselj 12, Dacic 8, Jovanovic 7, Stankovic 5 #izbori

So far, little is known about the preliminary results and even less information has been diffused regarding the voting in Kosovo. The OSCE mission was organizing the elections there and, even though the turnout was low at 2pm (only 17%), there seem to have been no problems:

@danielrhamilton: Just spoke to Serbia's State Secretary in #Kosovo Oliver Ivanovic. Election turnout light but no reported problems so far. #izbori2012

It is time to count now… and see what the outcome of the May 6 elections will be for Serbia and the region.

Serbia: Upcoming Elections Offer Few Choices, Inspire Apathy and Humor

Danica Radisic — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 00:37:09 +0000

Much unbeknownst to most people in the world, Serbia is, in many ways, looking at its most important election since the 2000 revolutionary elections that toppled the government of Slobodan Milosevic. For months now, the quiet before yet another political storm in the Balkans has been present on the streets and in homes throughout the country. The lack of will among voters to put up with more promises of reform and progress is now almost palpable, since state, provincial and municipal elections were announced for May 6 [en] just weeks ago.

As politicians and their parties have started campaigning avidly, so have many bloggers broken their silence on this issue. What most seem to express is one form or another of apathy and whom not to vote for.

These political opinions, or lack thereof, are most often expressed on social networks these days, with many taking to Facebook and posting public notes on the subject. A young man from Novi Sad posted one such note, titled ELECTIONS. Why NOT to vote for the current government [sr], with a list of facts, including debt, inflation, unemployment, and activities of several Serbian ministries since 2008, that the current government is responsible for:

- Debt in 2008, 20.53 billion Euros, in 2012, 25.14 billion Euros
- Exchange rate in 2008, 80.3788RSD = 1€, in 2012, 111.634RSD = 1€
- Average [net] salary in 2008, 47,883RSD, in 2012, 36,639RSD (both are unrealistic amounts as average salaries of all employed citizens are counted, without those who are unemployed, while it is common knowledge that outside major cities people work for a minimum wage of 24,000RSD)
- There are 200,000 people employed by this government, while over 400,000 others have lost their jobs, although one should take into account that employment rates have been pumped up by temporary jobs, such as newsstands that employ and fire some 40 people annually, making it questionable how many jobs are actually permanently retained. […]

The list goes on and is only one of many like it that mention the factual amounts spent by the current government and their political counterparts in the name of reform and betterment. Serbs have a tendency, due to the country’s turbulent past, to be well aware of political and economic matters and many are just as well informed when it comes to the European and global economies and political situations.

One of Serbia’s most popular bloggers, whom we have quoted here before, also calls attention to unemployment and other political and economic failures of the past four years in a text titled Jobs Are Out There Waiting, Just As Soon As Elections Are Over [sr]. Mahlat bases this particular blog post on the campaign promises of over a dozen political parties taking part in the upcoming elections that are all highly focused on raising employment and lowering national debt, but also includes comparison and contrast to EU countries:

During this pre-election time, we could open hundreds of topics related to the hundreds of issues that this country is realistically faced with, but I am most touched, irritated and flabbergasted by the matter of employment, the large number of those unemployed, the rising unemployment rate and, of course, the de-partisation of that.

Serbia has the same problem that all the countries in Europe have - lowered number of jobs, large unemployment rates among young people that is on the rise each year, pregnant women losing their jobs, the problem of mothers with small children finding employment…

The crisis that began in 2008 is still current. The unemployment rate in the Euro Zone is at 21%… The Institute for Statistics of the Republic of Serbia reported in January that the unemployment rate in Serbia was at 23.7% at the end of November of 2011. […]

What we are battling is equal to the battle in EU countries - with rising unemployment trends. And everyone claims that they have issues with inadequate training among employees, that there should be reforms in the education system, that there are no real programs for employing the young. […]

After a set of comparisons and contrasts to European statistics and mentions of campaign employment promises, Mahlat concludes:

If you’ve come this far [in reading], it must be clear to you by now that we have the same issues and that jobs won’t appear even with the help of a magic trick, so I ask those comrades who are promising them to turn to stabilizing the nation so that they can then speak of creating jobs. And to come out with a plan. How? When? They must have some idea of this?

Because if they keep promising to give what they don’t have, we won’t budge from this dead spot. Serbia has to work.

Serbia shares the fate of Europe, to which it territorially belongs, is economically bound, so don’t go hollering about handing out gifts that you don’t have to give.

In conclusion - according to the Institute for Statistics of the Republic of Serbia, in November 2011 there were 691,841 unemployed older that 15, 2,224,508 employed, as well as 3,377,510 inactive.

I’m supposing I belong to those 3,377,510.

I want to be active. I don’t expect gifts, but rather an opportunity.

Who’s offering?

Although many of the political parties running in this year’s election and their candidates have become active on social networks in recent months and, particularly, weeks - those writing online independently of any party or campaign don’t seem to be showing support for any of the choices on the ballots. In fact, most are writing against voting for someone. Many, as Mahlat mentions in her blog post, note the uncanny similarities of all the parties’ campaigns, platforms and promises. One blogger puts it all in one short blog post titled Promises, promises… [sr]:

You’ll be better off voting for us…

Said the representatives of every single party in Serbia in the past few days…

I don’t want it to be better for me… Having it good would be quite enough… You know the gradation - Good - Better - Best… Since I have it BAD now, I want it to be good. Better is the next step after that… I can’t recall if there’s anything they haven’t promised.

How are they not ashamed, they themselves know how much they’re lying and I’m sure the people are aware of all this…

[…]

The voter apathy is as apparent in other texts as it is in this one. On the other hand, Serbs have often shown in the past that they have a good sense of humor, even in the darkest of times, and seem to be showing it again. Many blogs jest with the upcoming elections, while some ridicule the candidates. One blogger has written a series of posts titled Elections 2012 [sr], in which he describes some of the candidates and their parties in a satirical tone, then adorns his texts with photos to boot:

"And the third little piggy… made his house from concrete" - feat. Ivica Dacic, current Minister of Internal Affairs and presidential candidate. Image courtesy of Vujaklija.com, Serbia's premier user-generated online dictionary of slang (used with permission).

(Other images in this post include this one of the “Preokret” coalition partners Vuk Draskovic (SPO) and Cedomir Jovanovic (LDP) in Jedi mode, and this one of Vojislav Kostunica, once hailed as the revolutionary of the decade, now often compared to Hans Moleman from The Simpsons.

While most have taken to serious criticism or outright ridicule of the candidates and elections in general, some have started calling for an organized and obvious boycott of the May 6 elections. Horizont blog [sr] and others have reposted and written about a Facebook group called “Project: Citizens have the power - 99% of Serbia” [sr], which is openly calling for boycott, even recommending options that voters have for boycotting:

[…] 1. Empty ballot
2. Invalid ballot
3. Abstinence

Option 1 can easily be abused as politically affiliated members can fill empty ballots in while counting ballots.

Options 2 and 3 are solid choices. If voter turn-out is very low, then this low turn-out and a large number of “creative drawings” logic and common sense would suggest that after the elections we question whether or not the existing political options have any LEGITIMACY in the eyes of the people. We remind you that the election laws and the Constitution allow for elections to be LEGAL even if a mere 100,000 voters vote.

A new option for those who are sick of all the existing political options is the following:

TAKE YOUR BALLOT FROM YOUR POLLING STATION WITH YOU

The Balkans: Remembering the Bosnian War, 20 Years On

Veronica Khokhlova — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 10:43:52 +0000

A red plastic chair for each person killed in Sarajevo in the war that began 20 years ago. A whole street lined up with red chairs, all empty but for some flowers on some of them. Those who could have sat in these chairs - 11,541 people - are long gone.

On April 6, 2012, thousands of people came to this stunning makeshift memorial stretching along Sarajevo's main street, in order to honor the memory of the victims of the Siege of Sarajevo, which lasted from April 5, 1992, to February 29, 1996 (some of the photos of the memorial are here, here, and here).

Red chairs are displayed along Sarajevo's main street as the city marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian War. 11541 red chairs represent the 11,541 Sarajevans who were killed in the 1992-1995 siege of Sarajevo. Photo by SULEJMAN OMERBASIC, copyright © Demotix (04/06/12)

Online, numerous texts have appeared around the time of the sad anniversary; memories, photos and thoughts on the meaning of what went on in Bosnia in the 1990s abound (e.g., here, here, here, here, and here).

On April 5, Damir Šagolj, a Bosnian photojournalist and a survivor of the siege - who, in October 2011, posted a powerful photo report on his visit to the detention facility for war criminals in the Hague, aka “the Hague Hilton - wrote this about his wartime memories and work:

[…] I don’t have any of my pictures from the 92-95 anymore. I shot many – mostly of dead people, of destruction. Very few had any life in them. Then, just as killings stopped and a different war continued in November 1995 I abandoned my photos; I didn’t want to have them anymore.

Not a smart move, but it was what I wanted at the moment – to forget, to put behind. To move forward.

All I have now are the cracks in my memory to peek through and imagine lives before we became just numbers. Only the weed grows around ruins, just like nails and hair on the dead bodies – the reminder.

I had all my photos in one room, at my former army unit in Vrazova street. I would walk past that building every day and all I had to do is to use the key I kept for many years after and pick up my films. I didn’t. Then a rich man bought the building and my archive went where I wanted it to go – into trash.

No matter how hard I try to explain what I did, it doesn’t work. Then, just a moment after, it all makes perfect sense again.

Soon after, it all became very abstract – the faces faded into shapes, names into numbers, lives into bones… I don’t trust my memory any more, it is selective and dazed.

That’s why it was important in Sarajevo to have people from outside who were stronger and more sober. They meet these days in Sarajevo for the big anniversary re-union. Probably only very few really understand how important was what they were doing 92-95.

Without them, the history would be written by same those who killed the man.

Thank you.

A Facebook page - Sarajevo 2012: A Meeting of War Reporters & Sarajevo Friends - was set up for the journalists' reunion; it contains the schedule of events, photos and notes from some of those who were able to attend. Edward Serotta, journalist, photographer and the director of Centropa.org, wrote this:

[…] Last weekend was one long emotional charge–it was like holding on to an electrical current and as soon as I let go of it, I felt everything drain away. Being together with so many people I respect, and who gave their all to bring this story to the world twenty years ago, was, at least for me, ennobling. […]

We all shared the same cause back then (those who came to Sarajevo for the reunion and those who didn't): to bear witness–photograph, record, document the events that proved the so-called civilized world was eating itself alive. We risked life and limb to do it, and lived very much on the edge–and we lived very intensely. […]

All that intensity we put into our work and all that commitment to document the horrors and the bravery, the big stories and the small, are way behind us now. […] But for one blustery April weekend in 2012, a few of us gathered together and remembered what we shared, what we covered, how we lived, and how we tried to help–in that limited way that each of us could.

Photojournalist Gary Knight posted this note:

Sitting in my studio in Boston reflecting on the last four days in Sarajevo - one of the most emotional experiences I think I have ever had. A bitter sweet embrace with a city and cherished friends with whom I shared so many defining experiences during the utter despair of the siege. As wonderful as it was to see you all I left wondering how peace could have gone so badly wrong. Bosnia deserved a better peace than the one Dayton gave it. I have travelled far and wide since the war in Bosnia ended but rarely to a place as utterly depressing. There is much we can still do there………..

Zdenka Pregelj (@CountessBezuhov), a Sarajevo native who has been photographing the city since 2005, posted Nic Robertson's CNN report from the journalists' reunion and wrote:

This is very emotional for me. At that time I worked for Television in Sarajevo and was meeting Nic and Chris day in day out. Thank you Nic for coming back after 20 years.

A Bosnian woman, Berina Hodzic, lays a flower on one of the red chairs that were installed along Sarajevo's main street to mark the 20th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian War. Photo by SULEJMAN OMERBASIC, copyright © Demotix (04/06/12).

For the past few weeks, YakimaGulagLiteraryGazett and Sarajevo Seyahatname have been posting links to media and blog coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Bosnian War. The latter posted a link to this short item from Pictures of War, a Tumblr blog, about “some unsung heroes of the Sarajevo Siege” - James Mason's 1992 photo of Sarajevo's garbage collectors, accompanied by this note:

Being a trashman in Sarajevo was probably as dangerous as being a frontline soldier. A lot of them died in the course of their work, either shot dead by snipers or killed by artillery. Without trash pickup the city would have descended into a middle-ages like morass of filth and disease.

Another photo by James Mason has been used to illustrate an article about the anniversary [sr] that appeared in the Serbian online newspaper e-novine.com. The links to this and several other related articles (including the one [sr] on the memorial rally organized by Žene u crnom (”Women in Black”) in Belgrade) were provided by Belgrade-based Pedja Popovic, in a comment to the BalkanInsight report stating that “[n]o one from the Serbian government will attend the April 6 commemoration of the start of the Bosnian Serb siege [of Sarajevo].

Popovic wrote:

Not all of media in Serbia ignored sad anniversary. […]

James Mason's photo, taken in winter 1993, is of a girl holding a few loaves of bread, with a breadline in the background - and here is the photographer's description:

Distribution of bread
Sarajevo

This girl had just received her family's bread ration. I had hooked up with a kid about 11 and he was guiding me around the city, showing me where it was safe to walk. The girl was a friend of his from school and was glad to see him. It's amazing how fast the kids in Sarajevo adapted to the war.

Reader lalos posted this comment [sr] about the photo in the comments section at e-novine.com:

Rasplaka me ona slika sa devojčicom koja je puna sreće jer drži nekoliko vekni hleba u naručju.

Prokleti ratovi i oni koji su bombardovali Sarajevo.

This photo of the girl who is very happy because she's got a few loaves of bread in her hands has made me cry.

Damn wars and those who bombed Sarajevo.

Serbia: Controversy Over Draža Mihailović's Rehabilitation

Sinisa Boljanovic — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:47:19 +0000

Dragoljub Draža Mihailović was a commander of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland, also known as the Chetnik movement, during World War II. In 1946, he was captured by the communist Yugoslav authorities, convicted of high treason and war crimes, sentenced to death and executed.

The tribunal for his rehabilitation, which began in June 2010 on the request by Draža's grandson Vojislav Mihailović, is nearing the end now. Although the request has been supported by some academicians, professors and politicians, the public in Serbia is divided. For some, Draža Mihailović is an innocent victim, for others, he is a justly convicted collaborator of the occupiers, who committed crimes not only in Serbia, but in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia as well.

Some politicians, NGOs and citizens from these countries have also reacted to the news. They have a more or less unified view of Draža Mihailović, considering him a criminal and a nationalist who had the idea to establish the so-called Greater Serbia.

Draža Mihailović. Photo: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Muzej Revolucije Narodnosti Jugoslavije, in the public domain.

Ivo Josipović, the President of Croatia, said to the Croatian daily Jutarnji List:

Draža Mihailović was a war criminal… I could remember a lot of cases where [Chetniks] collaborated, not being anti-fascists, but collaborated with the Germans, Italians and [Ustaše] fighting against the [partisans]… If the trial is finished as the media are announcing – but wait for the end of it -
it will be a bad step in regard to the Second World War and anti-fascism.

The Movement of War Victims from Bosnia issued a statement, in which they said this, among other things:

Bosnia and Herzegovina paid dearly for the Greater Serbia ideology, one of whose trademarks Draža Mihailović is. On the occasion of his rehabilitation we are seriously worried about sovereignty and peace in our country and we are afraid because we don’t know whether the atrocities and deaths which we experienced 20 years ago are behind us forever. Equaling the fascist and anti-fascist movements is the same as equaling victims and criminals from the period of aggression on our country.

However, Vuk Jeremić, Serbia's minister of foreign affairs, thinks the rehabilitation of Draža Mihailović is an internal issue of Serbia.

Serbian blogger Filip Mladenović wrote in his post:

[…] However, I am particularly irritated with the revision of history. It’s not clear to me who is in favor of relativizing our ancestors’ anti-fascist fight during the Second World War now by attempting to rehabilitate the Ravnogorski movement and its leader Draža Mihailović. Why does Serbia throw itself out of the winning anti-fascist coalition by these auto-goals? Why does it disown so many victims who perished honorably and courageously during the fight against Hitler’s Nazi regime? […]

There are more than 350 comments on Mladenović's post. Below are some of them.

Johnnyt wrote:

You are spitting at the man who was a genuine fighter against fascists and communists, while criminal [Tito], the president of the genocidal country of SFR Yugoslavia, is loafing in the House of Flowers […]

Dextera said:

Filip, you don’t know a lot of things. You have exclusively read and cited official history created by Tito’s regime. You don’t know that the trial of Draža Mihailović was a fixed [political] trial, you don’t know what kind of documents there are, you don’t know the role of the [Comintern], you don’t know who Dragić Joksimović was, you don’t know that Draža’s sister was killed by the Soviet soldiers when they entered Belgrade in 1944, etc. You would like to make things to be black and white, just the way Tito was doing.

Cult said:

It has to banned by law to falsify history and rehabilitate national traitors and collaborators with the occupiers.

niccolo said:

It’s futile to discuss again who killed more civilians – the Chetniks or the Partisans. However, does any of the participants in the discussion realize that the procedure of rehabilitation is not related to the question of whether someone committed a crime or not, but to the question of whether the accused one had a fair trial or had no trial at all?

A Belgrade-based historian Ljubinka Trgovčević said this to the Slobodna Evropa (Free Europe) web site:

If it was only about the reconstruction of the court trial, then the problem would be much less anyway. In this way, it goes without saying that he was acquitted, as well as his movement, of everything that he did or did not do.

Mirko Kovač, a well-known novelist from Croatia, said this to the same source:

Super. People could hardly wait for it to be done, so they could rehabilitate their own ones. This region is the same as Serbia. People here dream of rehabilitating [Ante Pavelić].

Dušan Stefanović from Chicago left this comment to the Slobodna Evropa article:

I don't see who was betrayed by Draža in the war. He was fighting against Tito's communists, Pavelić's soldiers [the Ustaše], Hitler's fascists… all enemies of the Serbian people during the war. He saved thousands of American pilots, more than 500 of them were evacuated only from the village of Pranjani in 1943. De Gaulle and Truman decorated him with the highest medals for his role in the war. Above all, General Mihailović did not betray Serbia.

Serbia: First Conviction for Online Hate Speech

Jasmina Babic — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 23:37:16 +0000

The High Court in Belgrade has recently brought its first conviction for online hate speech, sentencing Simo Vladičić to three months in prison and two years of probation for threatening members of the LGBT community via the Facebook group 500.000 Srba protiv gej parade/500,000 Serbs against gay parade in September 2011, when the gay pride parade in Belgrade was canceled due to security reasons. In a similar case, the European Court of Human Rights has recently ruled that hate speech against members of the LGBT community cannot be justified by the right to freedom of speech.

Balkans: Online Platform Tracks Reports From Areas Hit by Record Snowfall

Danica Radisic — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:12:22 +0000

Since last week, the Balkans have been hit by massive snow storms, the likes of which have not been seen in over a decade, if not longer. After an unusually long period of nearly no real signs of a typical Balkan winter, last week brought what seems to be non-stop snowfall throughout the region, including the seaside areas around the Adriatic that seldom get any snow.

Men shoveling snow from a street in Sarajevo. Record snowfall has paralyzed transportation in the Bosnian capital, where a state of emergency has now been declared. Photo by Sulejman Omerbasic, copyright © Demotix (5/02/12).

Serbia's national television network, RTS, and other media reported on Friday 3 February, 2012, that a state of emergency has been declared by the government, while citizens have been reporting critical situations throughout the country and that municipal services have been doing a poor job of tackling the snowfall in many urban areas.

In an article titled “Serbia Blocked by Snow, State of Emergency in 27 Municipalities, Recommendation to Call Off School Attendance” [sr], the Head of the State of Emergency Sector of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Predrag Maric, is reported to have stated on Friday:

27 municipalities in Serbia have declared a state of emergency due to heavy snowfall. Maric has told Beta news agency that the most difficult situations are in Sjenica, Ivanjica, Prijepolje, Crna Trava and Surdulica, where the height of snow has reached approximately 2 meters. According to him, power supply is “relatively good,” outages are being fixed quickly and there have been no long power outages.

Maric also announced the possibility of declaring a full state of emergency nationwide, which the Government did on Sunday evening, cancelling school throughout Serbia at least until Friday, February 10, among other things.

Several actions have been organized by the online community in Serbia and the region to fend off the snow and to attempt to regain a functional state in urban areas at least, such as a #lopataup (”#shovelup”), organized by one online community leader, Zoran Torbica, and other local Twitter users.

In the meantime, Al Jazeera Balkans, the recently established regional office of Al Jazeera news network in the region, has joined forces with the team from Ushahidi to set up a platform for tracking verified information on everything from road blocks, power outages to other critical points and information in the entire region.

Ushahidi is an open-source platform for information collection, visualization and interactive mapping, which was also used in Serbia just after the earthquake in Kraljevo in November 2010 to map and track damage in the area.

Haris Alisic, who heads the New Media team for Al Jazeera Balkans, launched the platform on Sunday evening, and many members of the online community, including some of the region's GV authors, have joined the Al Jazeera-Ushahidi team in curating, tracking and verifying reports from the region.

The adapted Ushahidi platform can be located on Al Jazeera's official site, while reports can be sent in by anyone using the following channels:

- via SMS to +387644218661
- via Twitter by using the hashtags #kolaps #sneg #snijeg #lopataup #iskljucenje
- via email to oluja2012@aljazeera.net
- or by entering information directly into the form on the”pošaljite izvještaj” tab on the Al Jazeera page

If you would like to volunteer your time to help map critical areas and are familiar with using online tools, please contact the author of this article, or Haris Alisic via Twitter, or leave a comment here on Global Voices, and we will contact you for more information on what you can do to help. We also ask that you all begin reporting from your area on Twitter and using the above-mentioned hashtags on Twitter, which are automatically collected by the platform and then reviewed and verified by Al Jazeera and volunteers.

Serbia: The Media War Against Angelina Jolie

Sasa Milosevic — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:15:37 +0000

Not so long ago Angelina Jolie was “more concerned” about the reception of her directorial debut movie, ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey‘, in Bosnia and Serbia than in the United States. She was eagerly awating the reactions of local audiences, whom she had portrayed in her war drama, and some of her fears turned out to be justified.

While the Bosnian public has warmly welcomed this war love story of a Serbian policeman and a Bosnian Muslim woman, the Serbian media have launched a war on the American actress, accussing her of spreading hatred toward Serbs.

Serbian daily Kurir initiated a series of articles [sr] that have seriously harmed Jolie's good reputation in Serbia:

Angelina claims in the movie that 300,000 Muslims were killed in the Bosnian war and 50,000 Muslim women were raped. The actress intends to seek the abolition of Republika Srpska as a genocidal creation. All of this was commissioned by the extreme Islamic policies, presenting Serbs as criminals, killers, murderers and rapists, and Muslims as the only victims.

Explaining the reason for Jolie's alleged pro-Muslim bias, the newspaper claimed [sr] that the movie was financially supported by Saudi direct investments of $10 million:

It is generally known that Jolie is very close to politicians in Washington. Maybe she would like the public to think it is an art film, but it is actually pure anti-Serbian propaganda. The director sends a message to the audience that Serbs are crazy wild beasts, while Muslims are innocent victims.

Momir Stojanovic, former director of the Serbian Military Intelligence Agency, also supported Kurir's claim that Muslim extremists had funded Angelina's project, saying “it is very close to the truth.”

The Serbian newspaper has triggered thousands of negative, pro-Serbian votes on imdb.com, one of the most reputable film rating sites, causing the film's score to drop drastically to 3.3 from an average of 5.4.

A screenshot of Jolie's film page on imdb.com.

Very quickly the page of Jolie's film at imdb.com turned into a virtual battlefield between Serbs and Muslims. (In the past few days, however, 11 pages of comments have somehow been reduced to five).

Sanja_Cancar says:

Angelina needs to stick to the topics she knows about, ei: ruining marriages, stealing husbands, adopting children from around the world, wearing blood. Instead, she chose the ironic path of a “peace-ambassador” that gets involved in politics she knows nothing about and creates movies that will only create more hatred… […]

Vitezbg observes:

Movie is full of political manipulations, lies, false informations etc.[…] Also 50.000 raped Muslim women is very disputed. It is famous case when ‘raped Sarajevo woman', gave birth of African child. Actually the father in this case was member of UN personal. […]

Johnny NT concludes:

Well done Angie, Goebbels and Hitler would be proud of you and your fascinating work on this movie. […]

rudeedee2 asks:

How could these people dare think to make a movie (”entertainment”) of such a horribly devastating situation ??? Seems only money is important. […] Would Angelina Jolie want to think her family has gone through hell and lost every semblance of normalcy, experienced fear, heartbreak, death and devastation only to find a so-called movie producer sees it as an artistic capital?

psysd3 reminds Angelina of the crimes of her own people:

[…] From the very beginning, by coming to America's soil on which it is estimated that, in 1500s, there were about 12 000 000 Native Americans whose number is reduced to nearly 237 000 by 1900s […]

Alex_Michael writes:

I guess I expected too much of Angelina. She might have black hair, but the movie sure look like put together by a blonde. Serbian Nazis who don't have problem killing anything from pets to babies on one side, and good Muslims on the other side… Example is Srebrenica where Serbs committed crimes by taking revenge after number of Serbian villages around Srebrenica were completely wiped out, and their inhabitants killed by Muslims from Srebrenica. This was well described in Norwegian documentary “Srebrenica a Town Betrayed”.

The Bosnian Muslim online community opposes the Serbian comments and supports Jolie's movie.

f_s is grateful to Angelina:

[…] Thank you Ms. Jolie for being the voice of the women depraved, humiliated and tortured. I recommend to everyone to see the movie especially women around the globe, to hear the unspoken, to witness the hidden. […]

Sibaak adds:

[…] We, the Bosnians do not hate. We are the most peaceful nation in the world, and thats why the facts of that war are so brutal! Because we didn't believe it could happen. We didn't believe that our friends would turn against us, rape us, kill our children, take over our houses. But they did. We that lived to tell, still, just like me, believe there are good Serbs. But what really hurts is to see how many people, just like on here, people that do not have even slightest idea of the truth, are so blind, and so hateful, because it tells me that they would do it all over again. In a way I feel its good that they are showing their real faces. Showing how ignorant they are. […]

Mela Fatkic expresses gratitude to Jolie on the movie's Facebook page. She writes:

Angelina thank you for this film, but we can not forget what it was. Thank you for the truth which not many people to reconcile, and nobody believes until they see…

Dino Gligic shares this opinion:

Angelina, thank you so much for telling the torld the truth about what Serbs did. It was worse than in that movie…

Nat Taschetti Garcia Angie admits ignorance and asks :

I just graduate on high school and i never learned about Bosnian war as i never learned about refugee camps. Do you feel like something has to be done in education, as a mom and as an activist?

Frustrated by the Serbian furious reaction, Jolie responded on Twitter:

Is it possible that the entire nation believes a concocted story from trash @KurirVesti magazine based on fake email from imaginary person?”

However, a few days later this tweet was deleted, and a new one appeared:

Don't express your love for own nation, race, religion, etc… by hating others.

On other side, Kurir pulled off the article of threatining tone: “Serbs declared war on the actress: you do not know what awaits for you Angelina” from the newspaper official site published as respond on Jolie's offensive tweet.

Jolie also tweeted this appeal:

Don't believe everything you read… “They kill good trees to put out bad newspapers.”

In an interview with Slobodna Evropa, Jolie expressed her affection for Bosnia, saying that “it is easy to be in love with Bosnia”:

I would not have created this film if Bosnikas hadn't agreed with the screenplay. I would have burned it…

Zeljko Mitrovic, the owner of Pink TV, is one of the most influental Serbs who had initially condemned Jolie because of her anti-Serbian prejudices and had even withdrawn from the movie project. Now, however, he has changed his mind:

It is wrong to attack Angelina now when the movie is finished. We could have changed something before they started making the film. Now it is pointless to generate hostility. That thing cannot be changed by additional antagonisms. She should be invited to Belgrade because people like her can help us in the future to improve the image of ourselves in the world. I invite Angelina to come to Serbia and to be a guest of TV Pink.

Macedonia: Comparing Steve Jobs to Tito

Filip Stojanovski — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:17:07 +0000

“Comrade Apple died” - the anonymous Taen bloger (= Secret Blogger) used the language imitating the original 1980 TV announcement [sr] of the death of the beloved Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito to comment [mk] on the reactions following the death of Steve Jobs.

Serbia: Discussing Report on ICT Use by State Statistical Office

Filip Stojanovski — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 23:59:19 +0000

Slobodan Markovic has initiated [sr] a Twitter discussion (#ICTSrbija) about the report on the use of ICT issued by the State Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (noted in an earlier GVO article). A recap is available in English, Macedonian, and Albanian language.

Macedonia: Celebrating Basketball Win Over Lithuania

Filip Stojanovski — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 12:09:46 +0000

The celebration of the Macedonian entry in the semifinals of the European basketball championship has spilled over from the country's streets, balconies and town squares into the blogosphere.

Ogledalo na edna dusha (Mirror of a Soul) blog posted [mk] photos and videos from the celebration of the victory of the Macedonian national team over the host, Lithuania, at the EuroBasket 2011, with levels of euphoria higher than the precedent with Greece.

Barabass considers [mk] this win as a defining moment of his generation, “something to tell the grandkids about.”

Ruling politicians have scrambled to get on the basketball victory bandwagon. The president already gave a medal to the national team in absentia, while the government used taxpayers' money to buy tickets for 150 hand-picked “professional fans” [mk] to go to the game.

Citizens privately voiced frustration over the brazen lack of transparency and accountability, especially because some of the pro-government media used the phrase “at its own expense,” as if the ministers were paying from their own pockets. The charter flight for this allegedly politically-connected group was sponsored by the Turkish company TAV, a a major investor in Macedonia. According to Netpress [mk], the “select” mob had a fight on the plane and compromised its security, and the airliner refused to accept 11 of them on the return flight.

The state budget also funded celebratory fireworks at Skopje's main square:

Social media users spread the following joke, referring to the general low level of knowledge about Macedonia in geographic terms outside of the Balkan region (most Macedonians who have been abroad can share a story about meeting people who had no clue where it was, or said it was an island in Africa or something to that effect).

- Where are you from?
- From Macedonia.
- And where is Macedonia?
- In the semifinals!!!

Twitter user Biljana also noted [sr] that the celebrations also spread to Serbia [sr] - a historic first gesture of “reciprocity.” Most Macedonian sports fans traditionally root for all ex-Yugoslav teams that make it to international competitions, when they don't compete against Macedonia.

Twitter users in the past few days have however, expressed aggravation due to the uncalled-for demeaning comments in some media from these countries.

Russia, Italy: Andrei Tarkovsky's Polaroids

Veronica Khokhlova — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 18:40:34 +0000

Jana writes [sr] about Instant Light, a collection of 60 Polaroid photographs by film director Andrei Tarkovsky, and posts some sample photos from the book.

Croatia, Serbia: A Flag of Friendship

Sinisa Boljanovic — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:22:05 +0000

Just a few weeks after Croatia officially marked the 16th aniversory of the military operation “Oluja” (the Storm), when more than 200,000 ethnic Serbs were expelled from their century-old homes, two young adults from Croatia and Serbia created a mixed Serbo-Croatian flag, as a gesture of reconciliation between the two countries.

Anja Blazevic and Stefan Guzvica, who are taking part in a regional art camp in Gvozd, Croatia, where the flag has recently been created, explained [hr] to Vecernji.hr, a popular newspaper in Croatia, their motivation to do it:

We’ve had enough conflicts based on nationalism […] permanently evoking the past bothers us, while no one is thinking about the future. We feel frustration because of that, and so we decided to make an effort in order to build, at least symbolically, more friendly relationships between the two countries.

We have created the flag in order to call our peoples to love and tolerance. We are aware that the flag will provoke a lot of reactions and polemics, but it is so desirable in democratic societies. We have made a few copies of the flag. One of them is fluttering in our camp in Gvozd, one copy will be taken to Serbia and others have been given to our friends.

More than 850 readers have commented on the article. Below is a selection of some of these comments.

pLoto* wrote:

Behind that are NGOs financed from abroad aiming at some new community to Croats’ disadvantage. But, after two former Yugoslavias that were a failure in blood, they who are working on it did not learn anything. I have nothing to do with Serbs, I’ve never been to Serbia… and I don’t want someone uniting me with them.

Jolly-Roger wrote:

The first step is that Serbs recognize Croatia, especially those who have lived in Croatia for a long time.

The second step is that they ask for forgiveness for all the crimes that they commited in Croatia, not only during the last war.

The third step is that all of them are moved out of Croatia.

Then we can have good relations, and the flag of Croatia will not be changed. We were fighting and dying for it.

cro1com wrote:

[…] We don’t need to be friendly people at all. We have to be very cautious of each other, especially Croats toward Serbs, because Croats have never waged a war against Serbs in Serbia but all of us have witnessed the aggression from the East […]

bilikamen wrote:

They should be killed immediately so that our children and grandchildren are not killed later.

21 KK Kobra wrote:

You are stupid… do you think that we like the flag and that it is OK? I have no words.

Andreeejjj wrote:

[…] Why so, my dear Croats? It will not be excused by anyone from the world! […] The future is the most important, not the past, whatever it was. If the politicians from all former Republics [of Yugoslavia] had wanted to prevent the war, it would have been done. Unfortunately, there was no interest in it because no one of them could become so rich. That’s all and brutally true, my people, be wiser just once. It’s the time.

Serbian daily Blic re-published [sr] the news, which has generated more than 600 comments. Below are some of them.

Persa wrote:

I support each initiative which contains a desire for well-being of the people, for mutual understanding, for love, for kindness, for offering aid… I’d like that everything that was bad does not happen anymore […]

Nikola Radovanovic wrote:

Hey, people, what’s the matter with you? Let’s forget once what happened! Look into the future and allow our children to live in peace and without hatred.

per-aspera-ad-astra wrote:

It should allow everyone, regardless of nationality, who hates and chokes in their own hatred, but I don’t understand how they want to go to Europe?

Serbian blogger Strongman also re-published [sr] the news and more than 80 people commented on it.

Mariopan wrote:

Bravo to the young people. A little bit normalcy in the crazy Balkans.

Looping wrote:

I believe the motive is good, but the creators should be taking care of their lives.

ivanivica wrote:

I am only reading and thinking of how many times the young Israelis and Palestinians meet up. And?

newyorkcity.boy wrote:

All honors for maturity and courage. I support it. Finally, someone has tried to make an effort of reconciliation. I hope the move will be just the beginning. All honors to you. How much further will we hate each other?

This issue has drawn attention of several thousand people from Croatia and Serbia, as well as the rest of the region, who have left their comments on many other internet platforms and forums in the past few days.

The Balkans: Travel Blogs

Veronica Khokhlova — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 01:20:27 +0000

At Balkan Travellers, Sarah Hucal writes about Yugo Yoga performance that took place on a makeshift stage at Belgrade's Museum of Yugoslav History in July 2011; more of Hucal's Balkan travel writing and photos are at her blog, Solo in the Balkans. Jana Orsolic's Istria Week travel photos and journal [sr] are here, here, here, here, here and here. Piran Café's latest entry on the June 2011 trip to Sarajevo (plus links to earlier posts) is here; the blogger also links to the New York Times' recent travel piece on Slovenia, Slovenian Rhapsody.

The Balkans: Over Half of the Population Uses the Internet

Danica Radovanovic — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 22:09:01 +0000

There are over 10.5 million Internet users in the Balkans/the former Yugoslavia, which makes up 51.7 percent of the region's population, according to a recent report [sr; see the table below].

The findings [.zip, sr] cited by Huge Media, in collaboration with Marko Tomić, a student from the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, show that Slovenia has the highest Internet service penetration (63.29 percent), while Bosnia and Herzegovina has the lowest (51.76 percent of Internet users).

It is interesting that over a half of the Serbian and Croatian population is on the Internet, and the authors of these findings consider [sr] that there's an incomplete research evaluation of Internet usage by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (RZS):

…As for the Internet users, we think that the RZS assessment is incomplete and does not include users of mobile internet. […they are] only examining a particular set of data that gives us information about a particular topic, but not the complete story that interests us.

Facebook is the most popular destination: over 70 percent of Internet users have a Facebook account in Serbia, and 63 percent - in Croatia:

The average time spent on Facebok is 25 minutes (both for Serbia and Croatia), and the average user in Serbia checks his/her Facebook account 16 times a day, while in Croatia it is 13 times a day.

[…]

The increasing number of Facebook users can be explained by non-residents of Serbia and Croatia using this social network during their travels.

The online social dynamics and the activities on Facebook do not differ much in other Balkan countries. Last year, we published the data on the Serbian young adults who spend the most of their time on Facebook, communicating with their friends (61 percent), “like”-ing their statuses (66 percent), sharing content and information (56 percent), writing private messages (47 percent), and playing games (22.4 percent).

Statistical and educational institutions in each of the Balkan countries could generate and use the data on the relevant online activities to detect and focus on their critical users, to adjust their policies and action plans based on the data.

It would be also interesting to see age distribution among users and other relevant demographics, as well as the analysis of online social interactions on other Internet services and social media sites.

Currently, research is being conducted on the social media usage among young adults, students, educators, and scholars in Serbia, but it is limited, in a way, as it cannot be considered a sample for the entire Balkan population. Each country could work on their local national data for cross-statistical area analyses for the future.

Serbia: Government Officials and Social Networks (Interview)

Danica Radisic — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 19:51:06 +0000

No sooner had the original satirical Twitter account @vookjeremic mocking Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vuk Jeremic, been shut down by Twitter administrators at the behest of Serbian authorities, than more fake accounts bearing the Minister’s name and those of other Serbian government officials, began popping up and spreading through the microblogging site like wildfire.

New phenomenon

The online edition of Serbian daily newspaper Blic has covered this new phenomenon [sr] and sparked comments from influential members of the online community, as well as politicians active in social media, most of whom have similar advice to offer those like Minister Jeremic.

Nebojša Radović, an Internet marketing consultant and probably one of the most popular regional Twitter users in general, explained that there are ways to verify and label an account instead of shutting down fake accounts and was quoted as saying:

… This freedom is precisely the beauty of the Internet, the censorship of which represents the carrying of habits of other media [into this medium] and a particular kind of inquisition toward all those who disagree with the system. Thus, the criticism directed at the Counter-Organized Crime Service (SBPOK) and the general disatisfaction of the local Twitter community isn’t surprising. - Radović explains and adds that criticism is a good thing and that politicians should be listening, instead of censoring.

Oliver Dulic, Serbian minister of Spatial Planning and Environment, who is as of recently another avid user of the social network, gave an interview on this subject to the popular Trojka portal, titled ‘All Significant Politicians on Twitter Soon‘ [sr], in which he says:

I believe that since I’ve been using Twitter I am much better informed as to what is happening in society. Instead of opening Internet sites I now have all this information in one place. Aside from that, it’s a pleasure to be able to communicate directly with people, even those that have an issue with my work.

Minister Dulic experienced his own fair share of online criticism and uproar when news leaked several months ago, that the site for one of his Ministry’s campaigns had cost around 26,000 euros, or the equivalent of some 75 average Serbian monthly salaries.

Criticism on the matter was continued recently on Twitter and Minister Dulic not only engaged in conversation with other Twitter users, but accepted the idea of publishing the details and specification for said site [sr], which he then proceeded to do on the Ministry’s official site www.ekoplan.gov.rs and published to Twitter, saying [sr] “I am at your disposal for more information…”.

Interview with Serbian Minister of Telecommunications, Jasna Matic

Among the first Serbian government representatives to be highly active on social networks were two women - Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Gordana Comic, and then Minister of Telecommunications and Internet Society, Jasna Matic.

While Ms. Comic is a regular at community conferences and events, Ms. Matic was even the organizer of the first tweet-ups sponsored by a Serbian ministry last year. Matic is on a first-name basis with many members of the community and, when asked to give a statement to Global Voices, she offered instead to meet for coffee and give a face-to-face exclusive interview.

Jasna Matic talking to Serbian high school girls interested in pursuing careers in ICT.

Global Voices (GV): By taking a look at your tweets from just the past month or so, I can learn that you like Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Alicia Keys and Jay-Z, you seem to spend most of your days working or traveling for government related matters, the airline you flew to New York and back with lost your luggage twice and you enjoy being around people. That’s quite an open profile for an active politician and member of government. Today I’d like to talk about the matter of satirical, or “fake”, Twitter accounts of politicians and other public figures. Global Voices, as have many others, has covered the story of the fake Vuk Jeremić account that the Minister requested be shut down. We couldn’t help but notice that you, knowing this was a fake account, exchanged a tweet with said account saying: “@vookjeremic Because @jasnamatic doesn’t feel the need to blend in. And because the point is to be cool in the summer and hot in the winter :)”. It would seem you feel this was all in jest and were having fun with it, like others on the network?

Jasna Matic (JM): I didn’t really know that there was a Twitter account with that name and at first I was upset with his tweet to me, then looked at it and realized it wasn’t a real account and thought “Why not? Let’s have fun with it.” Clearly, to some extent I can sympathize with Vuk Jeremic and you can’t always react the way you otherwise would when you’re a public figure.

GV: In a very recent interview on this matter with the online edition of the Serbian daily Blic, you were quoted as saying: “I am of the opinion that the Internet allows us to return to direct democracy, such as existed in ancient Greece, where all citizens participated and voted on what was to be done. The advantages of this should be exploited.” Isn’t that a rather idealistic way of looking at both the image of democracy in ancient Greece, which wasn’t always so pretty, and an idealistic way of looking at use of the Internet that many believe does need laws and regulation?

JM: That is clearly not, as they say in courtrooms, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but it is what the Internet brings. It does bring a voice to everyone and that is how I think it should be used.

GV: There are currently two Twitter accounts other than your own bearing your name, but both are inactive and we can’t tell whether they were meant to impersonate you in any way. Other than that, the local online community seems to be satisfied communicating with you directly, or not, rather than mocking you and you have several tweets to this effect: “I thought it might be a good thing when people can approach politicians and talk to them. Or, if they choose, ignore them. I could be wrong…” Why do you think that is, that the vast majority of your online audience is willing to talk instead of mock?

JM: I generally think, and it might be inappropriate for me to quote Obama and his team on this, but I do believe that when you treat people as adults, they behave as adults. That has been my experience and I try to do that. If anything, I think that applies to the online community. I’ve been in government for over ten years and have communicated with thousands of people. This [open communication] applies especially to the online community which is often more passionate, rational, opinionated and open. Whatever you give them, they will give twice as much back.

GV: We also ran into this tweet of yours: “So different than my everyday life: I do different things,talk to different people,think different thoughts, I feel like it's a different me.” Was it in reference to social media and being a part of the local online community?

JM: [smiling] No, it was in reference to me being somewhere else where nobody knows me and being in a situation where I wasn’t being viewed, analyzed and criticized. For three weeks I was able to enjoy the freedom and anonymity that it allowed. I decided to share that with my Twitter followers because it felt so good.

GV: And finally, how do you see the role of social media and the Internet in the economic, political and cultural development of Serbia and the region? What would your advice regarding that be to your peers, both in politics and business?

JM: I think it’s like any new technology. It provides a lot of opportunity, but you need to invest in it. I think it’s more difficult here than in other countries because we don’t have the habit of being that socially active. There is a very small percentage of people that enjoy being that active online. The Digital Agenda is working on that, trying to make the Internet more popular and more beneficial to everyone.

I think we all want to reach out to the people we serve (and I actually do believe in that - we serve) and this is a good platform to use for that. I use it with joy and satisfaction. There are good points and advice to be heard from various people that I otherwise never would have had the opportunity to interact with.

We thank Ms. Matic for giving her time for this interview.