The Central European Initiative (CEI) and the South East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) are pleased to announce the winner of the CEI SEEMO Award for Outstanding Merits in Investigative Journalism 2011, Mr. Włodzmierz Kalicki.
On 26 September 2011, the international jury met in Trieste at the CEI Headquarters and examined 26 nominations from 13 CEI Member States. The personal risks taken while performing their duties, the quality of reporting as well as the impact on society of the messages conveyed were the main criteria taken into account. The jury was composed of Pier Paolo Garofalo, Editor of the daily “Il Piccolo” (Italy), Andrzej Godlewski, Deputy Director of TVP1 (Poland), Drago Hedl, Dditor of the Daily Jutarnji List (Croatia), Sasa Leković, free lance Journalist and Investigative Reporting Trainer (Croatia/Serbia), Besar Likmeta, Editor of BIRN-Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (Albania), Mitja Mersol, President of the International Media Centre - Ljubljana (Slovenia); Adrian Mogos, Head of the Investigative Department of the Daily Jurnalul National (Romania). The meeting was also attended by Oliver Vujovic (SEEMO Secretary General) acting as advisor together with Zoran Jovanovic (CEI Deputy Secretary General) and Barbara Fabro (CEI Senior Executive Officer). Kalicki’s last success in investigative journalism was his tracking down in Germany of a famous painting by the Polish nineteenth century artist, Aleksander Gierymski. That work of art, entitled ”A Jewish Woman with Oranges”, was stolen from the National Museum in Warsaw during WWII. It was one of the most relevant paintings in the history of Polish art; searched, in vain, for many years after the war. Kalicki's investigations helped Poland regain priceless items of huge value to the national culture. Furthermore, his articles highly contributed to disseminating information about the loss of the Polish cultural heritage during WWII. Włodzmierz Kalicki will receive the Award of 5.000 EUR, offered by the CEI, on the occasion of the South East Europe Media Forum to be held in Belgrade, Serbia, on 2-3 November 2011. The Jury decided to award a special investigative journalism diploma to Artan Hoxha (Albania) for his brave and professional coverage of police brutality during Albania’s January 2011 anti-government protest and penetrating documentaries on some of the wildest gangs in gangland Albania in the 1990s; to Dijana Subotičkiher (Serbia) for her work on investigative stories along the news and reports, covering failures, missuse of power and corruption at local and regional level, but also as a message to journalists working on investigative stories at local level; to Matej Šurc and Blaž Zgaga (Slovenia), authors of the first of the book trilogy “In the name of the state”, for their investigative work on arms trade in Slovenia in 1990, based on consistent research of the arms dealings, supported by numerous documents and verified by credible sources as well as on a cross border investigative cooperation, which is an added value to the whole story.