Supported projects

BAGHDAD - This series of articles investigates the production and dissemination of fake news to sow instability in Iraq and the Middle East. It reveals how Iraqi (terrorist) groups are paying Facebook millions to churn out fake news, and gives an inside look in Hezbollah's fake news training camps.

AFGHANISTAN - Now that the Taliban is constantly threatening with attacks on polling stations and other places, it is fearful to see what the Afghan presidential elections of September 28 will bring. But everyone is convinced that they must continue: “The Taliban cannot stop us anymore. It's too late for that." 

SYRIA - "Bomb after bomb after bomb." Dima is peeling potatoes in the kitchen when rockets are fired at her house. She loses a leg and two fingers. There are 7 dead. All citizens.

AFGHANISTAN - During a visit to Dutch troops in Afghanistan in 2006, journalist Bette Dam discovered how little the military knew about their enemy. She left the military camp to investigate the feared taliban leader mullah Omar.

SYRIA - The caliphate is shrinking and ISIS is practically military defeated. But then what? Is ISIS a thing of the past? What remains of the terrorist group and what is there to expect? 

The Egyptian journalist Mahmoud Elsobky and the Palestinian television reporter and former UN employee Fady Al Ghorra spent a year searching, undercover, for online violent jihadist propaganda. How is it spread and how the phenomenon evolves now that ISIS is military - almost - defeated.

LONDON - Innocent people around the world have been added to a watch list of terrorists and criminals, an investigation reveals today. Research by an international consortium of media organisations exposes the secret World Check database, which lists over 2 million people.

Chorqisloq, a village in a remote region in Tajikistan, is under strict observation of local police, security services and other agencies. 69 inhabitants have left for Syria in the past three years. Fear seems to reign among village residents and relatives of IS fighters are closely monitored by the security services. ''Nobody knows how they left, not even their own family members'' whispers a primary school teacher. Her colleague adds: "We can not talk about them".

Since the late 1990s, the European Union has worked to encourage a European security market, where major defence and technology companies develop products and services that better protect us from crime and terrorism. This industry should also create jobs and be globally competitive. Over the past year, more than twenty journalists in eleven European countries investigated this burgeoning sector. And they discovered there’s a lot wrong with the European security market.

The dream of the Arab Spring has splattered. Since the outbreak of popular uprisings in 2011, things have gone from bad to worse in the region. Is the Arab world simply not ready for democracy, or is there more to it?