BELGRADE, Serbia—When Serbian investigative journalist Saša Dragojlo stepped outside his home to document a nearby protest on 23 March, he didn’t expect the attention to turn on him. As tensions flared between citizens and supporters of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), Dragojlo began filming. Soon pro-government activists were squaring up to him while the police stood idly by, he says.
Other journalists have suffered more serious attacks. At an SNS rally in Niš on 17 May, SBS radio correspondent Nikola Doderović was detained while reporting. Južne Vesti journalist Tamara Radovanović was also attacked and then removed from the scene by police, who let her attackers continue on.
The Parliament also heard testimony from journalists Dinko Gruhonjic, who says he’s received death threats, and Rijalda Mujezinović, whose father’s car was destroyed by vandals in a village near Prijepolje, in western Serbia. “I felt disturbed because they didn’t do it to me directly here in Belgrade, but they did it to my father. He lives alone and he's unprotected,” she said.
Beyond physical attacks, journalists face increasing government surveillance. An Amnesty International investigation recently found that two journalists from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) — where Dragojlo also works — were targeted with Pegasus spyware, in the third documented case in two years of Pegasus being used against Serbian civil society.
In Reporters Without Borders’ latest edition of the World Freedom Index, Serbia achieved its lowest score yet, ranking 96th out of 180 countries.
The report said that while Serbia was well regarded in the investigative journalism space, the country is “caught between rampant fake news and propaganda.” Journalists, it added, are vulnerable to “political pressures and crimes committed against them go unpunished.”
President Aleksandar Vučić has consistently disparaged independent media outlets, according to Freedom House — echoing rhetoric employed by many of his right-wing counterparts across Europe.
Against this backdrop, Serbia’s candidate status for EU accession has upset European lawmakers who say the bloc should not be opening its doors to a leader who takes an authoritarian stance on media, the rule of law and the judicial system, all while deepening ties with China and Russia.
Vučić is also under pressure at home. In November, a train station canopy collapsed in Novi Sad, killing 16 people and sparking nationwide anti-corruption protests.
Dragojlo spoke to The Parliament about his experience, the media, the state of democracy in Serbia today — and the role the EU has to play in it all.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What happened to you when you were filming the protest in March?
It was a hectic day in Belgrade. There were a lot of tensions between the people in the city and the SNS activists. A crowd gathered close to where I live, and I heard from someone that there were hooligans present. At one point, there was a conflict between some SNS activists. I started to film it. At that moment the fuss stopped, the two guys saw me and approached me. They were hostile. I said, “I'm a journalist, I work for BIRN,” and one of the guys became even more aggressive. He said, “Oh, you're a journalist?” and started leaning towards me. His companion pushed him away, but the intent was clear. It was all in front of several police officers, but they didn’t even take his ID. The crowd was chanting asking for the police to react.
Reporters Without Borders published a piece saying the noose was tightening around journalists in Serbia. Do you think that's an accurate portrayal?
Yes. Practically every day we have a situation where journalists critical of the government are being attacked or prevented from doing their job by ruling party activists. The police are always there and they never stop them. They just stand there, allegedly trying to “prevent bigger incidents.” The Vučić regime is becoming more and more aggressive and autocratic because he's losing voters. After so many years he's finally losing voters due to the actions of the student movement and the killing of 16 people last year in Novi Sad. So the atmosphere in society has changed.
Could the decline in media freedom be reversed anytime soon? Could an impartial media regulator be installed?
No, I don't think it's possible. The only way that something will change is if the people who are in power right now also change. They are controlling all the public broadcasters and all the private media. National broadcasting is not independent and it's not even mildly critical of the government. Vučić controls public broadcasters. And that is one of the pillars of his rule. He's just simulating reality.
Parallels are often drawn between the situation in Serbia with what's going on in Russia. What do you make of that comparison?
In general I dislike the comparisons between Serbia and Russia because I think people are trying to fit Serbia into some kind of pre-ordered puzzle. I would call the Serbian case a “stabilocracy”. The West has created Vučić and nurtured Vučić and is still supporting Vučić. Without Western support, we would not have this kind of autocratic regime. So it's really exaggerated to compare Serbia and Russia. If you just say that there is an autocratic leader who is trying to silence the voices here, of course that's true. But I think the EU countries have much more responsibility for what is going on in Serbia than anyone else in the international community.
You said the West has created Vučić. Can you unpack that for me?
When he came to power in 2012, he came on a pro-EU agenda. And one of the main things that he was supposed to solve is the Kosovo status. And because he's a former nationalist, he was seen as someone who can solve that problem for the EU and recognise Kosovan independence. Vučić also established Serbia as an economic zone for investors from the EU that now has the biggest economic cooperation with EU countries. Investors in Serbia are getting tax-free subsidies from the state budget for employing people. The free zone is for all companies, but mostly Western ones.
Vučić was seen as someone who will push Serbia away from Russia towards the EU. And although Serbia did not impose sanctions on Russia, it did export billions of euros worth of ammunition to Ukraine during the war. That was part of the deal. The West also made a lithium deal with Vučić, which is one of the most important things for the EU. So basically, they made the pact with the devil. It’s one of the reasons support for the EU in Serbia is decreasing.
Do you see free and fair elections in Serbia’s near future?
No. If there were elections now, Vučić would lose all the major cities, which is a huge problem for him. But the student movement has changed the game. When you have the most educated young people in the country who are starting this kind of rebellion for months, nobody can watch that and stay the same after it.
How do you perceive the role of China in Serbia as it stands today?
The Serbian student movement has no foreign backers. Russia is supporting Vučić. The EU is supporting Vučić, as is the US. As is China, for its own interests. China took over several old, state-owned enterprises and is extracting a lot of minerals including copper. There were a lot of cases, potentially human trafficking for the labour exploitation on the Linglong tyre factory construction. Environmental damage was also done by that project. So China is working quietly here. They have a strong presence when it comes to the economy. Vučić is working with everyone: Beijing, Brussels, Washington, Moscow.
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