Veran Matić: There is no strong pressure from Europe on the Serbian government to stop hate speech and targeting (VIDEO)

At a gathering of journalists held in support of the N1 team, which was attacked a few days ago, colleagues from a pro-regime association also appeared. Was that surprising to you, and how do you interpret their presence?

• I think this is the modus operandi of the tabloid world. We cannot call them colleagues or journalists; they simply do not respect the journalistic code. Not only do they ignore it, they do the exact opposite, producing enormous amounts of hate and lies every day. What they did was a show of force. They came to support the aggressor, not the victims. That is the nature of this regime. This regime sides with the aggressor. Let us recall the prosecutor’s amnesty, who sought amnesty for the girl who ran over a student in New Belgrade. That is the nature of this regime. It will always side with the aggressor over the victim.

At the time, I was standing with Vuk Cvijić, who was attacked in May last year by the director of Srpski Telegraf, Ladjević. I did not see if Ladjević was there, but I did see people from Srpski Telegraf. So, they came to show solidarity with Vuk Cvijić, who had been beaten.

Did they succeed in taking over this gathering?

• In any case, that was their intention. And probably, in their interpretation of events, it looks that way. I didn’t follow it closely.

They came there for fifteen minutes to get a live segment for their programs…

• I did not follow how they reported it. In any case, they came for material for their new lies, new provocations, and new hate speech over the next two or three days. So, as I said, they came to support all aggressors—not just the convicted aggressor who attacked the N1 team, but all those who attacked the previous 16 teams who came to report and do their jobs. They also came to support all aggressors who have attacked students and citizens over the past year. Journalists are the most visible in this case, as they are in front of the cameras and most noticeable.

From how I saw the event, we should have gatherings like this every day. Our colleagues in Novi Sad are on the front lines; they are practically the most attacked of all journalists, and there is a particular hatred toward people from Novi Sad in general. I think the Gendarmerie goes there with pleasure to beat citizens and, of course, journalists. That’s where the most violence against journalists occurs. But we must remain constantly active, because these are the worst two years for journalism since the infamous ’98, ’99, and 2000, when a journalist was killed and media outlets were shut down and sentenced to harsh penalties.

Do you get the impression that day by day the repression and types of attacks are increasing?

• Absolutely. That’s why I mention two years—this situation developed gradually, and today it is very drastic. Recently, as members of the Permanent Working Group, we were in Paris, speaking with our colleagues from Reporters Without Borders, the police, and the prosecutor’s offices. When we spoke to their police, they were shocked that every third day there is an attack on journalists in Serbia; it is an entirely unbelievable situation. There were 130-plus attacks in the past year, and only one case was resolved. Even their prosecution was somewhat shocked.

In the police, we could hear: yes, we have some incidents too, but we are in constant communication with journalists and try to build communication to avoid violent situations. At the end of 2024, we noticed an anomaly—the first anomaly—that the police were not reacting. More than half of the cases were not investigated at all when we reviewed the year. In other words, the police withdrew when it came to violence against journalists. At the beginning of this year, we saw that the police were ignoring attacks on journalists by aggressors.

How does the police behave? Do you already see a pattern in their behavior?

• This is exactly what I am talking about. The police now allow aggressors to attack journalists—that is, journalists are attacked in the presence of police. For example, in Niš, our colleague Tamara was attacked by one of the aggressors from SNS security, in front of about ten police officers. The police acted on his command when he said: “Remove her from here,” so the police reacted toward the journalist, not the aggressor. This aggressor is from Novi Sad, and with him was another aggressor from Novi Sad who attacked our colleague Uglješa Bokić last year. So, the police assist and obey aggressors, and they do not act in any case, except in the case of Verica Marinčić, which is the only resolved case this year, because even the police were attacked. That was the beginning of this year. Later, the police themselves started attacking journalists. We recorded over 20 classic attacks, and NUNS recorded 72 attacks, including police inaction in such situations, which is an unprecedented level of police activity against journalists and the media.

How important is it that we do not fall into the trap of normalizing things in this generally aggressive environment? What counts as an attack on a journalist?

• First, I must say that we have already normalized the abnormal—that is, this state has normalized abnormality. The president mentioned in January that he has around 17,000 loyalists ready to die for him or for the regime. We can now see who they are: convicted criminals, people closely tied to financial centers, money extraction, and so on. Everything is upside down.

We have project co-financing, where the state finances lies. Money is no longer given to media that protect public interest but to tabloids that spread lies. This is completely abnormal, yet it has become a kind of “normality.” Now we see efforts to take full control of the prosecution. After the police and military, the prosecution is being taken over as well. There is a “normality” where the Organized Crime Prosecution is being abolished, and laws are being proposed to allow it. This is being normalized, and we must look at the bigger picture, not just the attacks on us, because this is an attempt to take absolute control over all segments of society.

In this case, I had to report attacks to both prosecutor’s offices—the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office and the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office—because the policy of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office is, let’s say, hostile toward independent media and journalists, constantly avoiding these cases, including the physical attack on Vuk Cvijić, and so on.

What actually happened? The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office immediately said this is not a case for us, even though it involves violent behavior, which is part of their job under the criminal code. Then the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office took over, which caused delays. This is the whole story.

You were one of the first to arrive at the scene where the attack happened. What struck you the most while waiting through the whole process, since there was a vacuum of about an hour to an hour and twenty minutes?

• Everything was questionable. I left ten minutes after the attack had taken place. Igor Božić called me, and I immediately went because I knew our colleague Maja was in a very bad situation, surrounded… The physical attack is always shocking for anyone. No matter how much you expect it could happen, it still looks brutal. While I was on my way there, I contacted the usual points in the police and reported the case to the prosecutor’s offices, but no one responded. At first, it was a shock for me—it was obvious that they must have known, as I used a usual communication channel. When I arrived at the scene, I saw a lot…

So they knew why you were calling them… and decided not to respond?

• Exactly… I saw many police officers there, patrol officers who are always there. I saw plainclothes officers from the public order unit Stari Grad, but they all stayed on the sidelines. An officer from the intervention police was also there, staying aside. What shocked me immediately as I approached was that the area where parts of cameras and tripods were located was not secured at all. Citizens were crossing the scene that should have been preserved for the investigation. Instead, they stood aside. I absolutely knew that they had not intervened, neither preventively nor during the incident, and this is truly unprecedented.

I heard yesterday that the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office sent the case files to the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office asking them to examine whether there was a criminal offense in the police’s behavior—in particular, in their inaction and the fact that the area where the attack occurred was not protected. It took me 45 minutes to get the first response. Only after I called Branko Stamenković, Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor, did the system start to work. People from forensics arrived on November 29, and you can see a huge difference. These are old professionals who distance themselves from the other police officers who were there. They wanted to finish the work quickly and leave.

Then the identification process took place, thanks to a photo sent by a citizen witness from the N1 newsroom, and the perpetrator was identified. He is a convicted individual, sentenced to 35 years, of which he served 15…

For murder?

• For murder. After that, he got a year and a half for aggravated violence, which is very interesting. He was extradited to Serbia from Croatia in November last year and should have been in prison. From November to now, he should have been in prison. And maybe…

If we consider Ćacilend as a prison…

• Maybe he was in prison, maybe he came from prison, or maybe this is an amnesty, perhaps a price for amnesty that he would be at that place in Pionirski Park. I often saw him as I passed by, where he behaved like a sort of commander, allow1ing people in and out, etc. Only then did the intervention occur, and those who had been inactive started making calls. I really think that was the beginning of damage control.

They realized what they had done…

• They were there to protect him, but then the identification happened prematurely, and now they had to figure out what to do, how to behave. So, only concern for the aggressor activated those who had been there for the past hour. A whole series of mistakes was made. Meanwhile, we received information from representatives of the intervention unit that there would be no investigation. This was an attempt to leave the scene as quickly as possible.

Instead of having colleagues go to the first police station to give statements?

• Exactly. However, after five minutes, when the mechanism started to work, it was said that the prosecutor had changed the order.

Veran, would this have happened if you hadn’t started calling, if some kind of intervention by representatives of all associations hadn’t been triggered?

• I don’t think it would have happened. Yes, colleagues from NUNS immediately arrived. We were literally on the phones the whole time. I think it would have ended with the prosecutor saying there’s no case here… You must go through a private complaint, go to the police station at Majke Jevrosime Street, as he said. That would have been the end of it, and of course, then a court process would follow via private complaint, which is much more complicated for establishing what really happened and punishing the perpetrators. Most likely, nothing would have happened.

Earlier we compared this to the 1990s—how this situation also doesn’t favor journalists in Serbia today, or Serbian society in general, given that we cannot even speak globally of any enviable level of press freedom. Censorship is everywhere, fake news as the dominant narrative is everywhere, and recently Christiane Amanpour did a report for CNN specifically on N1 TV. After completing the report, she said: “Yes, Donald Trump does all of this here as well.” Sometimes, it seemed we sought comfort, refuge, and support from the outside world—how much room is there for that now?

• Yes, we used to have much greater solidarity, much stronger professional media communities worldwide. The world has changed a lot, and now there are only rare cases of consistent professional journalism, which is a big problem. Another major problem is that it is increasingly difficult for the outside world to understand our position—the position of the victims, those under constant physical attacks and pressures, because other political interests dominate. We have been in a multi-year struggle with the European Commission to recognize the situation we are in here…

To convince them of what?

• To convince them how journalism is dying in Serbia, how journalism is being killed here every day.

Which part don’t they understand?

• Every week, we are losing one media outlet in the interior of Serbia. Practically, in the interior, there are now “media deserts,” areas where there are no local outlets reporting professionally in the public interest. They don’t understand that far greater, more serious support is absolutely necessary. That’s the difference compared to the 1990s. Back then, we had serious support for development—for example, ANEM. As the Association of Independent Electronic Media, we had over 40 local stations. Entering the Fifth October period, B92, although banned, operated as a central hub with over 90 broadcasters, continuing work with serious support.

Now, the mechanism needs to be rebuilt, the system built—all that the state provides through project co-financing… The state allocates over 15 million euros annually for project co-financing, but in the last two years, 90% of it has gone to tabloids, essentially financing lies. Europe doesn’t understand this—it’s an obvious, direct theft of funds intended for building the rule of law, democracy, and so on. Practically, before our eyes, resources meant to support democratic media are stolen and invested in outlets that spread lies and hate speech, which Europe opposes and which the signed Association Agreement also opposes. There isn’t enough strong pressure on Serbia, on the government, to stop hate speech and targeting.

Last month alone, the Slavko Ćuruvija Foundation recorded more than 160 instances of targeting, defamation, and attacks on journalists and media coming from the highest representatives of the government. These attacks and insults are then amplified in tabloids, which further multiply them on social media, leading to threats online. For example, one person from France threatened our colleague Ana Lalić Hegediš, saying: “I will kill your family, I know where you live,” and when arrested, he claimed he didn’t realize he committed a crime; in his mind, he said, “I was just reading Informer and got angry, then wrote the threat.”

The same threats were made against our colleague Sanja Ignjatović Eker.

• Exactly. We also had a knife attack on a dean in Niš; the attacker said she had been watching Informer TV… 

Inspired, in fact…

• Yes, yes… So, we have direct evidence of this. What happened last night is exactly this. It was not just provocation, but a demonstration of force. They wanted to show: “We are much stronger than you, and what you do makes absolutely no sense.” I see this as a form of threat. They will continue to spread hate speech and lies against media and citizens who want a democratic and normal future.

If we compare numbers, it seems that in 2016 there were around 60 attacks on journalists. NUNS colleagues say that so far this year there have been 310, starting with verbal attacks and now reaching the point of throwing a camera on the floor. Are you concerned about this escalation?

• The problem isn’t only the escalation. In the last two years, we have only three resolved cases out of 160 reported to prosecutors. In 2019, out of 60 cases, 20 ended up in court—about a third were sanctioned by the judicial system.

So, the fact that there is no legal consequence, that penalties are mild, could embolden attackers?

• Absolutely. We have a situation of almost complete impunity—three out of 160 is near-total impunity. Regarding attacks on journalists, there is total impunity even in the case of journalist murders: three journalists have been killed, none of the cases solved. The whole apparatus, including the police, behaves this way. Moreover, in this last year, an unprecedented step has been taken: the president promises amnesty and grants it to perpetrators. He says: “If you are arrested, don’t worry, I will amnesty you.” Part of the prosecutor’s office is also included in this, which is frightening. We expect that even if this attacker is detained, the public may not see it because there is now immense pressure that an amnesty will be applied—he is practically a soldier of the regime. I don’t believe they will simply stop defending such violent individuals.