IPI: Attacks on journalists in Serbia reach an unprecedented level amid ongoing anti-government protests.

Amidst the increasingly violent state response to anti-government protests in Serbia recent days, attacks and pressure on journalists have reached unprecedented levels, deepening what is already one of the worst media freedom crises in Europe.

Death threats and physical attacks against journalists and media workers are now occurring on a near daily basis, as reporters and photojournalists cover violent clashes between riot police, government-backed hooligans and student-led protesters.

Yet even as the law enforcement authorities and the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) led government of President Aleksandar Vučić crack down and the emergency situation for journalists worsens, many in Serbia have the feeling that worse is yet to come.

The Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS) told IPI it has now recorded more than 232 different attacks between the beginning of the year and August 22.

More than 42 attacks against journalists were recorded since the first day of August, with 10 occurring during coverage of recent mass protests on August 13, when the latest surge of protests broke out across the country carrying calls for new elections.

“The number includes 52 cases from March until now of assaults, threats, obstruction by the police or when the police did not respond – when the law enforcement officers witness the attacks, they simply turn and walk away,” Rade Đurić, a lawyer at NUNS, told IPI. “We haven’t yet counted hate speech and other forms of pressure. Who knows how many stayed under the radar.”

This high number of attacks on journalists – the most ever recorded in modern Serbia during that time period – and the lack of accountability for the perpetrators, is having a chilling effect on the press as they try to cover the ongoing protests.

Yet even as the tactics of the government and police become increasingly apparent, independent media and civil society in Serbia are again criticising reactions from Europe as lukewarm and insufficient.

“For us, in an authoritarian society, the most dramatic thing is that despite dozens of attacks on journalists a day and many more on citizens, the EU does not respond in a meaningful way,” Veran Matić, chairperson of the management board of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), told IPI.

He added: “The citizens of Serbia have been expecting a proper reaction from the European Union for months. There is no adequate response from the EU institutions, which emboldens the government. Every day we have a dozen new attacks on journalists, and this is the new normal.”

Covering the protest movement

Student-led protests began nine months ago after the collapse of a canopy at the renovated railway station in Novi Sad, killing 16 people. Initial demands for the  full disclosure of information and accountability for the tragedy became aimed at wider negligence and calls for an end to state corruption.

As the demonstrations morphed into a wider citizen movement and the largest anti-government protests in modern Serbia, professional journalists and media organisations reporting on them were increasingly targeted by government supporters and politicians, who branded them as “foreign mercenaries”, “terrorists” and “anti-Serbs”.

As well as pro-government media and commentators, these verbal denigrations and smears have been increasingly taken up and echoed by SNS politicians and even from the executive, with Vučić himself dangerously branding media organisations N1 and Nova “terrorists” and liars attempting to overthrow his government.

As protests swelled again in Belgrade and cities across the country in recent days, Serbian police have faced condemnation for the use of disproportionate force against civilians and for the tacit permittance of attacks on protesters by government-backed hooligan groups, which has led to violent clashes and numerous injuries. Photojournalists documenting police brutality are often the first in line for these attacks and make a bulk of those injured.

As well as attacks from SNS supporters and hooligans, there have also been numerous allegations and in some cases documented examples of media workers being violently attacked by police while covering the clashes, despite wearing clear PRESS insignia, prompting journalists’ and media organisations in Serbia to warn that a red line has been crossed.

Recent police violence against the press

On August 13, Kompas journalist Danica Ilić was attacked while filming President Vučić addressing his supporters in front of  party premises in Belgrade when SNS supporters started insulting and humiliating her, even though she was wearing a PRESS vest.

“All this happened five meters from the President”, the associations said. “When the journalist tried to take a statement from him, the men surrounding him took her phone away. What is even more worrying is the reaction of the police — instead of helping, they advised her to get used to the situation.”

On the same evening, Nikola Bilić, a journalist from the 192 portal, was beaten and Žarko Bogosavljević from the Razglas portal was hit on the head with a police baton. The other targets of violence that night were the women journalists from Zoomer and Mašina.

“You can clearly see in the footage that the policemen are chasing and attacking the photojournalist”, said Đurić.

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Also on the evening of August 13, photoreporter Gavrilo Andrić was attacked in Belgrade while standing one hundred meters away from the protest in a group with other journalists with clearly marked PRESS vests. A policeman ran toward Andrić, hitting him with a baton on the head so hard that he was knocked to the ground.

“I saw that he was going to hit me, so I started to take cover. He hit me so hard that part of my helmet broke,” Andrić told IPI. He added: “When the police officers attack the cameras, the message is clear.”

In the northern city of Novi Sad, Marina Nenadović, a journalist from the Zoomer portal, was hit on the leg by a stone and pieces of pyrotechnics on August 13 while reporting from a protest.

“They hit me with stones from the direction of the premises of the Serbian Progressive Party”, Nenadović told IPI. “SNS supporters targeted all the citizens, so the journalists were also hit. I was also burned by the fireworks and pyrotechnics they threw at us”, she said.

Nenadović continued: “The next day, I was filming an arrest in Novi Sad. When he realised I was filming, he approached me without identifying himself. I assume he was a plainclothes policeman. He held my arm and asked a colleague to identify me. When I showed that I was a journalist, he told me that I couldn’t film officials while they were performing their duties. He said that he would let me go now, but that I must not do that in the future.”

NUNS documented that last Friday, photojournalist Marija Čolaković was beaten by the police with batons, leaving her with visible injuries to her arms and legs, while student photojournalist Luka Pešić, reporting for student media outlets, was chased twice by police officers as he was trying to document an arrest in Belgrade. 

In another prominent case, on July 2, photojournalist Aleksa Stanković, a contributor to the weekly Radar newsmagazine, was arrested and allegedly mistreated by police while covering a protest. Stanković claims police detained him, locked him in a van and then demanded that he delete videos he had made, delete his Instagram and Facebook profiles, and restore the phone to factory settings. Policemen then allegedly beat him because of the recordings he had made and then broke his memory card. 

“First, the police failed to protect journalists, and today they are actively participating in their intimidation and beatings”, said NUNS Secretary General Tamara Filipović, while addressing a recent rally over Stanković’s alleged mistreatment. Stanković has initiated legal proceedings against the police.

During coverage of a protest in Belgrade on 15 August, Vuk Cvijić, a journalist with weekly Radar, was standing with his colleagues on the street when a uniformed policeman, equipped with riot gear, approached him from behind and sprayed him with a chemical agent on the neck. 

“The attack was targeted only at him, even though he was in the company of friends and colleagues”, the Serbian Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) said in a statement. “He is one of the most famous and best investigative journalists, whose work covers corruption and abuses in institutions, including the police.”

Cvijić was left requiring urgent medical attention due to severe pain and irritation to his eyes. 

United Media journalists a particular target

Radar is part of the media group United Media, whose journalists from TV N1 and TV Nova are exposed to continuous physical attacks in the field, disruption of work, threats and pressures.

Igor Božić, Director of N1, told IPI that attacks on the media outlet’s journalists are occurring openly in the presence of law enforcement officers, who he claimed fail to intervene, prevent assaults, or hold perpetrators accountable. Such inaction effectively amounts to tacit approval, he said, violating domestic law and international standards for the protection of journalists.

Since November 2024, amidst the student-led protests and the government response, more than 30 documented attacks have targeted N1 journalists while performing their professional duties, Božić said in a recent letter sent to European institutions and international media organisations. It stressed N1 journalists are now exposed to daily death threats and attacks.

A recent example occurred in Vrbas, where a member of the N1 crew covering a protest was injured when stones were thrown at him by SNS activists. The protest took place in front of the local SNS offices where ruling party activists allegedly aimed fireworks, stones and water bottles against protesters. Riot police were present and witnessed the entire incident, yet failed to intervene, N1 said.

Days previously, at the same location, an N1 reporter was confronted by unknown individuals making the “slaughter” gesture of a finger across the throat and subjected to threats, Božić told IPI.

At the same time, smear campaigns against United Media journalists are continuous on the pro-government channel TV Informer. Live on air, its hosts and commentators have referred to N1 and its journalists as “media poison factories” and even “terrorist organisations”. 

Journalist Sanja Ignjatović Eker, a correspondent for TV Nova, received serious threats online after TV Informer reported on her coverage of the protests in Novi Sad. According to TV Nova, the smear campaign was amplified by both the President in a telephone call to the TV Informer, and then by the Minister of the Interior at a press conference the same evening. These were immediately followed by threats and insults addressed to Ignjatović Eker and her family, including threats to “liquidate” her child.

In perhaps the most shocking threat, on July 11, an anonymous letter was delivered to N1 referencing the 2015 terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 journalists and media workers were gunned down. The letter accused N1 of “spreading propaganda” and conducting an “anti-Serbian campaign,” suggesting its journalists could meet the same fate as those at Charlie Hebdo.

Over the past 10 months, not a single attack or threat against United Media journalists has been properly investigated or the perpetrators prosecuted, according to N1 and monitoring by independent media groups.

At the same time, the United Group has been shaken by management turmoil after the majority owners, investment fund BC Partners, removed Dragan Šolak from the position of Chairman of the Advisory Board and Victoriya Boklag from the position of General Director. Editors at United Media launched an ‘Appeal to Protect Independent Journalism’, airing concerns that the move “could mean that BC Partners is exposed to political pressure and opens up room for editorial influence by governments or interest groups hostile to media freedom”.

“We have not yet received guarantees that we can continue to work as before, independently and without pressure”, says Božić, N1’s Director, said.

Since Božić spoke with IPI, a new director, Vladica Tintor, was appointed at United Group in Serbia, arriving accompanied by a lawyer associated with state-owned Telekom Serbia, sparking growing unease among staff.

Irene Khan, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion, recently outlined her concern over a recent statement made by President Vučić’s that N1 and Nova would be shut down by the end of the year.

“I am concerned that the President knows what will happen in November and that is a sign of interference in the independence of the media and a complete violation of the law in Serbia and international standards,” the UN Rapporteur said.

OSCE Representative on Freedom of Media, Ambassador Jan Braathu, has expressed particular alarm over the targeting of United Media titles, saying: “Systematic targeting of non-government affiliated media outlets  is pervasive. This includes journalists from N1 and Nova, who in particular have faced hostile rhetoric, intimidation, obstruction of reporting and even physical assaults.”

Media freedom in deep crisis

As violent protests continue and demands are made for new elections, journalists in Serbia have had to increase security measures when they report from the streets.

Marina Nenadović, a journalist from the portal Zoomer, recalls that during a protest in Novi Sad people had vomited all over the street due to the amount of tear gas used by the police. She told IPI that so far during the protests ordinary surgical masks and saline solution have been used, but from now on the newsroom agreed to use helmets and protective goggles.

Photographer Gavrilo Andrić, in addition to protective equipment, now carries more photographic equipment to the field, so that “I can be ready if my cameras are damaged and continue to work.”

In Vojvodina, even smaller local media, such as Magločistač from Subotica and IN media from Inđija, also recently received death threats against them and their families.

Ana Lalić Hegediš, President of the Independent Association of Journalists of Vojvodina (NDNV), told IPI the situation for the work of journalists was “never worse” than at present. 

“Journalists are threatened from all sides”, she said. “Both from the police, from the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and from thugs. We have seen that journalists are attacked directly in live programs in front of the cameras, and the police stand a few meters away and do not react.”

“In confrontations between SNS supporters and citizens who are trying to protest peacefully, journalists are in the middle and the target of pyrotechnic devices, rocks and sticks. As the president of NDNV, and at the request of my colleagues, I am forced to look for a way where we as an Association can get some kind of bulletproof vest for journalists who report from the field in Vojvodina.” 

Lalić Hegediš, who has herself been personally exposed to targeting and death threats for years, says that there is no safe place for journalists in Serbia, but she does not expect a reaction from the competent authorities. 

“As an Association, we are completely powerless to protect journalists because there is no institution in Serbia to which we can complain and get results. When it comes to our own Association, the only thing that protects us from being physically targeted in the streets is precisely the support we receive from organisations, both from Europe and internationally.”

A captured media ecosystem

The immediate violence is only part of the problem for media freedom in Serbia. 

At the same time, the government is doing everything possible to retain its tight control over the media ecosystem, particularly the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM), the country’s key media regulator and body that grants licenses to television stations to operate.

While the REM is tasked with monitoring media coverage and penalising breaches of the media law, it has systematically failed to do so, allowing the spread of disinformation and unethical and illegal behaviour, particularly from pro-government broadcasters.

Meanwhile, the public broadcaster RTS continues to suffer from low levels of independence, high levels of state pressure and is lacking in diverse opinions, with reporting skewed towards toeing the government line.

Often anti-government protests are not reported, or in other instances the reason for the protests are not stated. Political leaders and the President have on several occasions derided RTS for reporting on the protests, claiming that their journalism is biased and unprofessional.

A group of RTS employees who called for more professional reporting and demanded  the resignation of all editors and journalists at the broadcaster who don’t follow the Ethical Code of Journalists were met with pressure and in some cases by non-extension of their contracts.

A further blow to media pluralism in the region came in July with the shutdown of Al Jazeera Balkans, one of the rare major regional media that reported professionally on the protests and human rights and democracy issues in the country.

Elsewhere, at least 12 journalists and employees of Euronews Serbia recently received confirmation of the termination of their employment contracts due to alleged technological redundancy. It has been claimed that the redundancies were in fact issued as retribution for staff opposition to pressures and changes in editorial policy.

Other independent media face legal pressures. Award-winning investigative portal KRIK, for example, has been constantly targeted and pressured with SLAPP lawsuits. Most recently, outlets were targeted in lawsuits announced by Health Minister Zlatibor Lončar, accusing professional media outlets of spreading false news and causing anxiety and panic due to their reporting on the consequences of the apparent use of a sonic weapon against demonstrators.

Looking to the EU

Media freedom and the safety of journalists in Serbia remains in a state of emergency and prolonged crisis, with the situation continuing to deteriorate as the government’s heavy handed response to the protests continue.

Yet even as the pressure on press freedom deepens and the warnings of regional and international media freedom groups increase, there is a widespread sense that the EU is not responding as forcefully as it should to these attacks on core democratic values in a candidate country.

“The first and most basic thing that the European Union and other international organisations, such as the United Nations, should communicate to this government is that it has normalized the misperception that independent media criticising the government are an enemy of the state,” said Božić.

“Someone must warn them that this kind of country, with this kind of pressure on independent media, is not a civilized country and that they must change that. And immediately. Declarative support for freedom and the media has no effect on Vučić. He continues to do what he does – he tells the Europeans one thing, and he does the other in Serbia, and he does it more brutally than ever.”

Veran Matić, long a symbol of the fight for media freedom in Serbia, concluded with a call for international solidarity: “The fact that Europe is on vacation will not be able to pardon anyone. I cannot understand why European politicians and mainstream media outlets have not reacted to the violence against journalists in Serbia.

“Just as with the massive crimes against journalists in Gaza, if we do not speak out and help our colleagues, no one will support us if we one day face the same. We have to wake up and show solidarity.

“For me, someone who has been under attack for 40 years, I see the devastating fact that the past in Serbia is coming back to us in the most terrible way”.

Jelena Petković

Source: IPI