Supported projects

BELGIUM - Since 1999, companies are subject to appear before criminal courts for the crimes they commit. How often did this happen? When did it not happen? For what reason? What punishment did the public prosecutor ask for if the case did go to court? And what punishment did the judge pronounce?

Massimo Carminati, boss of an alleged mafia group in Rome, is said to have made millions of euros before his arrest in December 2014. But this financial treasure is nowhere to be found.

BELGIUM - For the first time in Belgium, political parties were evaluated for their transparency. The research is based on foreign experiences (in Spain and Chile) that are limited to observing the presence of information on the parties' sites. Civic platform WijBurgers, which is author of the Transparency Index of the political parties in 2016, has improved the methodology by using certain statistics available in Belgium (Political Database, Cumuleo).

Journalists from west Europe have broadcast and printed stories about east Europe that are distorted or false, leading to a fake presentation of reality which victimises nations and some of their poorest and most vulnerable citizens.

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".

Sex before marriage is punishable by lashes and incarceration. Adultery even with the death penalty. And that is why promiscuous sexual behavior in Iran is the norm. Two journalists, with the support of the Pascal Decroos Fund, made a captivating undercover report from the underbelly of Tehran.

"We lost our media”, stated Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán in a rare interview in early 2015. He was referring to the media empire of a longtime ally-turned-enemy.

In Mali, the expression “aller en aventure” (setting off on an adventure) is widely known: young men are encouraged to spread their wings and leave the country to become a "real" man. Belgian actress Aminata Demba travels to Mali in the footsteps of her deceased father, to discover what drove him to undertake his journeys, before arriving in the Antwerp diamond district in the early 1970s. She discovers Mali, its culture of nomads and the importance of hospitality.

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.