MEDIA SCENE OF SERBIA IN JUNE 2026

In June, the month in which twenty-five years have been marked since the murder of journalist Milan Pantić, the European Parliament's foreign policy committee adopted the most critical Report on Serbia by the European Parliament's permanent rapporteur for Serbia, Tonino Picula. A group of civil society organizations, including the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia and the SHARE Foundation, made a public appeal to numerous European authorities not to support in any way the closed annual conference of the surveillance industry ISS World Europe. Media publishers TV Adria ("Adria TV" d.o.o. from Podgorica) and TV Prva ("AST" d.o.o. from Podgorica) were imposed maximum fines by the Agency for Audiovisual Media Services (AMU) for broadcasting the documentary film "Referendum - the story of invented freedom" produced by the Center for Social Stability.

At the request of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, the judge for the preliminary proceedings of that court issued an order to search the apartment and office of military analyst Aleksandar Radić. The responsible editor of the Beta news agency, Vojkan Kostić, received an invitation to report to the Criminal Police Directorate. Dejan Petar Zlatanović, editor and journalist of the Srbin.info media, lawyer and vice-president of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV) Aleksandar Olenik and Bojan Simišić from the organization Eko Straža also gave a statement in the premises of the UKP. The reason for the calls, according to the public in Serbia, has a common name: the suppression of freedom of expression and the right to be informed in the case of the use of a sound cannon.

Media and journalist associations announced that Veran Matić, while reporting in front of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, was attacked by an unknown man and robbed of his mobile phone; that, from the space provided for reporting on the celebration of Vidovdan at Gazimestan, the Kosovo Police pushed journalists from newsrooms and media reporting in the Serbian language away; that Dink Gruhonjić's son David Gruhonjić's car was vandalized; that CINS journalists, in the public space in front of the EXPO premises, were threatened with personal space by three men in civilian clothes without markings; that the duly accredited journalist of the Vreme weekly, Davor Lukač, and the photo editor of the Insider media, Srđan Ilić, were not allowed to report from the military exercise in the Pasuljanske meadows; that the duly accredited team of TV N1 is not allowed to report from the second session of the Kula Municipal Assembly; that the team of the Volim Zrenjanin portal was prevented from reporting from the session of the Zrenjanin City Assembly; that the journalist of the Radar weekly Vuk Cvijić was not allowed to report from the public session of the Teaching and Scientific Council of the Faculty of Medicine; that the journalists of TV N1 and TV Nova were not allowed to attend the session of the Medical Chamber of Serbia; that photojournalist and freelance journalist Marko Dragoslavić was threatened while he was reporting on illegal construction in Belgrade.

During June, a handwritten threat was sent to the address of the TV N1 newsroom, to journalist Danica Vučenić from Maribor. The Bečejski mozaik journalist Kristina Demeter Filipčev was also threatened, as well as Maria Popović, the editor of the Pravo u centar portal from Lazarevac, Vladimir Mitrić, the journalist and correspondent of Večernje novosti from Loznica, the editor of Rešetka media from Leskovac, Dragan Marinković and his editorial staff; journalists from Magločistač media from Subotica, IN Media from Inđija, Južne vesti from Niš, Vranje News and others. The pro-government tabloid Informer targeted journalists Dinko Gruhonjić and Getoarba Mulići.

The High Court in Belgrade issued a first-instance verdict ordering the editor-in-chief and publisher of the research portal KRIK to pay Predrag Koluvija compensation for non-material damages due to texts in which the plaintiff was labeled as an "accused drug lord". The Association of Independent Electronic Media reacted publicly to the decisions of the commissions for the distribution of funds in the tenders for project co-financing of media content conducted by the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications.

The reader can be informed about all of the above in the Monitoring of the media scene in Serbia for the month of June 2026.

This publication was published with the financial support of the European Union. The Association of Independent Electronic Media is solely responsible for its content, and that content does not necessarily express the official views of the European Union.

Text of this Monitoring Report was prepared by expert monitoring team from the law office "Savović" in cooperation with ANEM.