June 30, 2025
Pro-regime television channels in Serbia have long been utilised, not only for political campaigns and for threatening and insulting journalists and critics of the government, but also to announce upcoming arrests of activists and students.
Ahead of the student protest of 28th June, multiple pro-regime television stations simultaneously aired a live “special broadcast” with extracts of a conversations between six men that the prosecution suspects of preparing “to commit acts against constitutional order and security”, i.e. the violent overthrow of the government.
The exact same scenario played out ahead of the major student protest held in Belgrade on 15th March, when multiple pro-regime broadcasts showed a secret audio recording of a meeting between activists and politicians in Novi Sad, after which several of them were arrested, while others went into hiding. Those arrested were declared terrorists and are being tried for destroying constitutional order.
This relates to yet another flagrant abuse of the media. The Prosecution service launched the arrests in coordination with pro-regime media, while lawyers were presented with television and tabloid reports as justification for the arrests.
Ivan Ninić, the lawyer of one of those detained, said that orders were issued for the accused to be remanded into custody for 30 days due to recordings of as yet unconfirmed authenticity that represent only fragmented parts of a possible conversation between friends. He explained that the judge based his decision on content that was published through the tabloids.
