"Veran Matić arrives on a scooter faster than the police": How violence against female journalists in Serbia looks like.

The editor of the Lazarevac portal Pravo u centar, Marija Popović, reported from a Serbian Progressive Party gathering in April. Following the release of a video on her media outlet's Instagram page, she received misogynistic comments and messages directed at her and her family. The regional network for journalist safety, SafeJournalists, recorded one of the direct messages as a threat of sexual violence based on gender, and the case is reportedly in the information-gathering phase according to the latest available data.

Only two months later, Popović received another threat. ANEM reported her to the High-Tech Crime Prosecutor's Office, indicating that the message contained a death threat and a threat of sexual violence. The attack was provoked by her work, but what followed was not limited to criticism of her professional duties. The attack extended to her appearance, body, sexuality, and family.

Jovana Gligorijević from the group Women Journalists Against Violence states that this pattern is constantly repeating.

“The patterns of attack are so similar that when I am exposed to them, I find myself wishing they would just change: a journalist is not just a foreign-paid agent, a conspirator; she should not just be broken or killed, but she is also fat, a whore, an old woman; she should be raped,” Gligorijević told Naš portal.

She emphasizes that such messages are not random.

“And indeed, it is so only because she is a woman, as everyone knows, even assumes, what women's fears are,” she adds.

Gligorijević divides what happens after an attack into three parts: the attack itself, the reaction of the woman exposed to it, and the reaction of her immediate surroundings. The first part often ends up in a statement or police report. The other two are discussed far less, even though that is where the consequences the woman carries last much longer than the message itself.

“Ignoring it” is not an answer

Eight international organizations for media freedom have warned about a “spiral of violence against journalists” in Serbia. According to data from the Mapping Media Freedom platform, since the beginning of 2026, 31 online death threats have been recorded against 44 media workers, and organizations particularly warn about threats of sexual violence and attacks on families.

For female journalists, such threats often follow a recognizable gender pattern. Criticism of professional work transitions into insults about appearance, age, and sexuality, with threats taking on a misogynistic and sexualized form. What happens afterward is much harder to quantify in statistics.

Journalist Jovana Gligorijević at a protest of journalists in front of the Presidency Photo: Jovana Gligorijević / Private Archive

Gligorijević expresses particular frustration when women who receive threats are advised to ignore them.

“We mostly hear ‘don’t pay attention,’ ‘it goes into the service period,’ and similar phrases. It does not go into the service period, and just because a woman decides to ignore it does not mean her subconscious will comply,” she says.

The consequences, she explains, may not be immediately clear even to the woman herself.

“Then we enter a series of reactions from the attacked, who doesn't even know why she feels bad, why she sleeps poorly, avoids going out if she doesn't have to,” Gligorijević points out.

Through conversations with women who have experienced attacks, hate campaigns, and targeting in tabloids, she has noticed another consequence that is rarely discussed.

“Through conversations with numerous women, not just journalists, who have experienced attacks, hate messages, and so on, I noticed that we all, like a snake hiding its legs, keep a secret, which is that we suddenly believe those messages and comments, writings in tabloids,” Gligorijević says.

This, she adds, can go so far that a woman begins to question herself.

“A journalist who has been attacked starts to believe that she deserves all the hate and aggression that has been poured on her. In addition to the fear for her life, I think this is equally terrifying,” she emphasizes.

She says that this feeling is often silenced until someone who has gone through a similar experience appears.

“And we remain silent about her until someone who has gone through the same experience comes and says: ‘You are not what they say you are.’ Several times this summer, I found myself in a situation where I said that sentence to someone, and the shocked looks and the question of how I know that person feels that way is something that deeply concerns me,” Gligorijević says.

The system fails to recognize her as a woman who has been attacked

Marija Babić from NUNS, who deals with the safety of journalists, tells Naš portal that the system does not recognize gender-specific threats as a separate category.

“Unfortunately, the system does not recognize such threats, and there are no special mechanisms. When female journalists report such threats, they are treated like all others, meaning it is investigated whether there are elements of criminal offenses that are prosecuted ex officio,” Babić says.

According to her, this is where the broader context is lost.

“The experiences that female journalists have gone through, as well as the significance of the journalistic profession and how those threats can affect their work, are completely disregarded. It is particularly concerning that, in addition to threats, female journalists often receive a large number of offensive, misogynistic, and similar comments that further impact them, their safety, and their sense of vulnerability,” she notes.

Babić also warns about secondary victimization, meaning the further harm to women through the system's response and the process that follows after reporting.

“Here, the question of secondary victimization that female journalists go through arises, and in my opinion, institutions do not have the sensitivity for that at all,” she emphasizes.

There are protection mechanisms related to journalists and media workers in general, but, as she explains, female journalists and media workers are not specifically recognized.

When attacks extend to mothers, daughters, and other women in the family

On June 11, journalist N1 Danica Vučević received a letter sent from Maribor threatening her closest family members, along with a misogynistic insult. N1 immediately reported the case to the police, and a few days later, Vučević stated that she regularly reports threats but does not recall that in previous cases the perpetrator was found.

“I get the impression that while I sit there and give a statement every time and talk about how worried I am for myself and my family, I am wasting my time because nothing will happen afterward,” Vučević said.

Attacks do not stop at female journalists. When someone wants to intimidate a person who speaks or reports publicly, targets can also include mothers, daughters, partners, and other women in the family. International organizations noted this August that sexual violence was threatened against the mothers of Marko Vidojković and Nenad Kulačin, and previously against Kulačin's daughter, while similar threats were directed at the child of columnist Radar Predrag Simonović.

In such attacks, women's bodies once again become a means of intimidation. Even when the immediate target is a man, the threats are directed at the women around him because the perpetrator counts on this to produce greater fear and pressure.

Few convictions, many unresolved cases

Babić states that impunity is one of the biggest problems and that the situation has not significantly changed since previous reports.

“A very small number of convictions, a large number of unresolved cases where the perpetrators remain unknown,” she says.

She sees a particular problem in the last two years in cases being handled by the High-Tech Crime Prosecutor's Office.

“In the last two years, a particularly small number of resolved cases in the field of high-tech crime has been highlighted as a problem, and the majority of threats, as well as other comments, come via the internet, social media, and websites,” Babić says.

The Prosecutor's Office cites communication with digital platforms and the failure to provide data that would enable the identification of those sending threats as one of the problems. However, Babić reminds us that the same issues existed earlier when there were more convictions.

“The problem, as the prosecutor's office emphasizes, is communication with the platforms and the failure to provide data, but certainly, these problems existed before, and we had more convictions,” she states.

In 30 cases, the police did not respond to the prosecutor's office

Another serious bottleneck concerns the cooperation between the police and the prosecutor's office. Babić states that in the last two years there has been a large number of urgencies sent by the prosecutor's offices to the police, as well as cases where the police do not respond to the prosecutor's orders.

Gligorijević points to the same problem.

“This year a new problem has emerged: the police refuse to act on the prosecutor's orders. If the law obliges them to do so, if we lived somewhere else, we would be asking how this is possible, but here we are where we are,” she says.

Data from the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office shows that in the first five months of this year, 52 cases were formed regarding criminal charges or reports of threats to the safety of journalists. In 30 cases, the prosecutor's office requested the police to gather necessary information, but the response did not arrive.

Branko Stamenković, the prosecutor coordinating the work of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, explained that the police cannot simply ignore the request of the public prosecutor by law; they must act or provide a legal reason why it is not possible.

Gligorijević states that before discussing improving the system, there must first be a basic response from the institutions.

“There should at least be an institutional response from the start. That would be a small, nice change,” she says.

In the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, representatives from journalistic and media associations, the prosecutor's office, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs sit. Gligorijević describes the distinction between those who can provide support and institutions that have the authority to conduct investigations much more simply.

“The power is in the hands of this latter group, but when an attack on a female journalist happens somewhere in Belgrade, Veran Matić arrives on a scooter faster than the police,” Gligorijević says.

A sexual threat can disappear as soon as the case enters the courtroom

Even when a case goes to trial, based on Gligorijević's experience, the sexualized nature of the threat often gets sidelined.

“If the process does occur, for example, if it reaches a trial, no one cares about threats with sexual connotations,” she says.

Speaking from her own experience, she also points out how the way a woman describes her fear can influence the course of the proceedings.

“Moreover, from personal experience, I know that if you only express fear for your safety in court, and do not emphasize that you mean physical safety, the sender of the threat may be acquitted,” Gligorijević explains.

Physical harm can be documented with a medical report. It is much harder to identify insomnia, changed routines, avoidance of certain places, or fear that prevents a woman from wanting to go out alone next time in a case. Babić sees the problem of secondary victimization precisely in this point, as the broader context in which the woman was exposed to violence often gets lost in the process.

“Has anyone asked how her life has changed?”

Gligorijević therefore talks about the case of freelance journalist Zorica Popović, who was attacked on March 29 while reporting on local elections in Šarbanovac near Bor. According to records from the SafeJournalists platform, her attackers dealt two blows to her abdomen and stole her camera. The case was reported to the police, the public prosecutor initiated proceedings, and according to the latest available information, the case is still in the investigative phase.

“Now I would like to ask, and I know there is no answer: our colleague Zorica Popović was beaten in Bor and her camera was stolen. Her bruises have healed and her kidneys have recovered from the beatings. But has anyone asked how her life, her routine, her habits have changed? And if so, what is the punishment for those consequences, and why zero days in prison and zero dinars in fines?,” Gligorijević asks.

Babić says that the absence of an epilogue further discourages women from reporting violence.

“All this points to institutional problems, and as long as they are not resolved and the relevant institutions do not start doing their job properly, in accordance with the law, the situation will not improve, because every unpunished threat and absence of response from the authorities only encourages new threats,” she warns.

This relationship of institutions already affects the behavior of female journalists.

“All this affects female journalists who do not trust these institutions and who increasingly avoid reporting threats because they do not want to go through everything without any hope that anything will ultimately be resolved,” Babić says.

The number of reports indicates how many incidents have reached institutions, the number of open cases shows how many the prosecutor's office has taken into action, while the convictions reflect how many have reached a conclusion. However, it is not visible how many women, after receiving a threat, sleep poorly, change the route they take home, avoid certain topics, or stop believing that reporting even makes sense.

Right here lies the intersection of what both interlocutors speak about: violence does not stop when the message is deleted, nor when a woman leaves the police station. If the system fails to recognize the gender nature of the threat, and the woman no longer believes that reporting will change anything, the space for new violence remains open.

Source: Naš portal