The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project condemns a raid at the offices of Botswana’s Center for Investigative Journalism (INK) and the harassment of Joel Konopo, a founding and managing partner of the center.
Joel Konopo
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is the Person of the Year for 2017, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an organization that has for six years recognized the individual who has done the most in the world to advance organized criminal activity and corruption.
Rodrigo Duterte (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Daily Maverick, amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism and Platform for the Protection of Whistleblowers in Africa have launched today an online facility for sharing a large data trove at the centre of an international corruption and money laundering scandal.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) strongly condemns the murder of Maltese investigative reporter and blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia.
Photo credit: daphnecaruanagalizia.com
Khadija Ismayilova is an investigative journalist with Radio Free Europe and OCCRP. She responds to UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova’s letter to the Guardian about UNESCO’s relationship with her country’s repressive government. Ismayilova spent 18 months in an Azerbaijani jail for her reporting about the ruling Aliyev family of Azerbaijan.
Khadija Ismayilova (Photo by Aziz Karimov)
It has come to our attention that members of the current government have launched a smearing campaign against one of the members of our network.
Uzbek journalist Ali Feruz (Photo: Facebook) The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) expresses deep concern over the possible deportation of Novaya Gazeta reporter Khudoberdi Nurmatov, better known by his pen name Ali Feruz, to Uzbekistan. OCCRP also condemns any abuse against Feruz while he is detained.
The Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) included two OCCRP investigations as finalists for the bi-annual Global Shining Light Award, a prize honouring “investigative journalism in developing or transitioning countries, done under threat, duress or under dire conditions.”
2015 Global Shining Light Awards, Drew Sullivan (left), Miranda Patrucic (middle) and Stevan Dojcinovic accepting their award. (Photo:OCCRP)
Afgan Mukhtarli (Photo: Afgan Mukhtarli/Facebook) Afgan Mukhtarli is an Azerbaijani journalist, living in Georgia, who has worked with both OCCRP partner MeydanTV and with OCCRP. The Tbilisi-based journalist disappeared off the streets near his home on May 29 and was next seen in custody in his native Azerbaijan, where he has been charged with crossing the border illegally, carrying 10,000 euros in undeclared currency, and resisting border guards.
Through his lawyer, Mukhtarli denies all charges and claims he was kidnapped, beaten, had money stuffed in his pockets, taken to the border, and handed over to Azerbaijan authorities.
OCCRP will continue to work for the release of Afgan Mukhtarli. His arrest is an affront to international rule of law and his kidnapping is a crime in Georgia.
Mukhtarli has been working on stories on the business holdings of the family of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev in Georgia. OCCRP will continue his work on these stories until his release.
When OCCRP partner, journalist Khadija Ismayilova, was arrested in Baku in 2014, OCCRP continued her work and published the Khadija Project, a series of investigative stories about the corruption of the Aliyev family, while she was in prison.
The message is clear. You can arrest one of our reporters, but a dozen will take their place. The truth will get out.
Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet’s reporting had challenged authorities from Minsk to Moscow and Kyiv. In a murder that shocked the world, he was killed by a car bomb in the Ukrainian capital in July 2016.
The OCCRP is partnering up with the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga) Center for Media Studies to present the Journalism for Future Challenges program again this year.
We are looking for early career journalists from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, or Ukraine who are looking to expand their investigative reporting skills, with a focus on organized crime and corruption, as well as to expand their professional network.