Latest news with #Informer
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A Serbian court swaps prison for house arrest for 3 out of 6 jailed activists after pressure
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — An appeals court in Serbia on Tuesday released three out of six political activists from jail following protests and international criticism of the populist government, which has faced monthslong anti-graft demonstrations. But the court in the northern city of Novi Sad ordered that the three remain under house arrest, pending legal proceedings on suspicion of anti-state activities. The court said that it would issue another ruling at some point about the other three jailed activists. The six were detained in March after secret recordings of their alleged plotting to take over state institutions was broadcast on pro-government media in Serbia before a major rally in the capital, Belgrade. Hundreds have been protesting for days against their prolonged detention. Those released from jail include a high school teacher who was transferred to a prison hospital in Belgrade last week after going on a hunger strike. The huge rally on March 15 in Belgrade was part of protests that started after a concrete canopy collapsed on Nov. 1 at a train station in Novi Sad, killing 16 people. Shaken by the tragedy, populist President Aleksandar Vucic's government has stepped up pressure on those involved while trying to curb the demonstrations. Lawyers for the jailed activists in Novi Sad say that the accusations against their clients are based on illegal wiretapping, and there's a lack of evidence. Vucic criticized the ruling in a statement on pro-government Informer television, saying it was the result of pressure from 'the gang' of protesters outside the court. He described the activists as 'terrorists," adding that 'there is not a country in the world' that would release them from jail. Protesters in Novi Sad said on Tuesday that they would continue with the demonstrations until all six activists are out of prison. Six more activists facing the same charges aren't in the country. Tuesday's ruling came as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk arrived in Belgrade. Last week, Tonino Picula, the European Parliament's envoy for Serbia, described the activists as 'political prisoners," while Civil Rights Defenders group called it 'a clear attempt by the Serbian government to silence dissent.' Critics have accused Vucic of increasingly authoritarian rule that stifles the media and other democratic freedoms. The president says that he wants Serbia to join the European Union while boosting relations with Russia and China. Many in Serbia believe that widespread government corruption linked to major infrastructure projects fueled negligence and undermined construction regulations that contributed to the disaster on Nov. 1 at the Novi Sad train station, which triggered the protests.
Winnipeg Free Press
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
A Serbian court swaps prison for house arrest for 3 out of 6 jailed activists after pressure
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — An appeals court in Serbia on Tuesday released three out of six political activists from jail following protests and international criticism of the populist government, which has faced monthslong anti-graft demonstrations. But the court in the northern city of Novi Sad ordered that the three remain under house arrest, pending legal proceedings on suspicion of anti-state activities. The court said that it would issue another ruling at some point about the other three jailed activists. The six were detained in March after secret recordings of their alleged plotting to take over state institutions was broadcast on pro-government media in Serbia before a major rally in the capital, Belgrade. Hundreds have been protesting for days against their prolonged detention. Those released from jail include a high school teacher who was transferred to a prison hospital in Belgrade last week after going on a hunger strike. The huge rally on March 15 in Belgrade was part of protests that started after a concrete canopy collapsed on Nov. 1 at a train station in Novi Sad, killing 16 people. Shaken by the tragedy, populist President Aleksandar Vucic's government has stepped up pressure on those involved while trying to curb the demonstrations. Lawyers for the jailed activists in Novi Sad say that the accusations against their clients are based on illegal wiretapping, and there's a lack of evidence. Vucic criticized the ruling in a statement on pro-government Informer television, saying it was the result of pressure from 'the gang' of protesters outside the court. He described the activists as 'terrorists,' adding that 'there is not a country in the world' that would release them from jail. Protesters in Novi Sad said on Tuesday that they would continue with the demonstrations until all six activists are out of prison. Six more activists facing the same charges aren't in the country. Tuesday's ruling came as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk arrived in Belgrade. Last week, Tonino Picula, the European Parliament's envoy for Serbia, described the activists as 'political prisoners,' while Civil Rights Defenders group called it 'a clear attempt by the Serbian government to silence dissent.' Critics have accused Vucic of increasingly authoritarian rule that stifles the media and other democratic freedoms. The president says that he wants Serbia to join the European Union while boosting relations with Russia and China. Many in Serbia believe that widespread government corruption linked to major infrastructure projects fueled negligence and undermined construction regulations that contributed to the disaster on Nov. 1 at the Novi Sad train station, which triggered the protests.
San Francisco Chronicle
20-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
A Serbian court swaps prison for house arrest for 3 out of 6 jailed activists after pressure
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — An appeals court in Serbia on Tuesday released three out of six political activists from jail following protests and international criticism of the populist government, which has faced monthslong anti-graft demonstrations. But the court in the northern city of Novi Sad ordered that the three remain under house arrest, pending legal proceedings on suspicion of anti-state activities. The court said that it would issue another ruling at some point about the other three jailed activists. The six were detained in March after secret recordings of their alleged plotting to take over state institutions was broadcast on pro-government media in Serbia before a major rally in the capital, Belgrade. Hundreds have been protesting for days against their prolonged detention. Those released from jail include a high school teacher who was transferred to a prison hospital in Belgrade last week after going on a hunger strike. The huge rally on March 15 in Belgrade was part of protests that started after a concrete canopy collapsed on Nov. 1 at a train station in Novi Sad, killing 16 people. Shaken by the tragedy, populist President Aleksandar Vucic's government has stepped up pressure on those involved while trying to curb the demonstrations. Lawyers for the jailed activists in Novi Sad say that the accusations against their clients are based on illegal wiretapping, and there's a lack of evidence. Vucic criticized the ruling in a statement on pro-government Informer television, saying it was the result of pressure from 'the gang' of protesters outside the court. He described the activists as 'terrorists," adding that 'there is not a country in the world' that would release them from jail. Protesters in Novi Sad said on Tuesday that they would continue with the demonstrations until all six activists are out of prison. Six more activists facing the same charges aren't in the country. Tuesday's ruling came as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk arrived in Belgrade. Last week, Tonino Picula, the European Parliament's envoy for Serbia, described the activists as 'political prisoners," while Civil Rights Defenders group called it 'a clear attempt by the Serbian government to silence dissent.' Critics have accused Vucic of increasingly authoritarian rule that stifles the media and other democratic freedoms. The president says that he wants Serbia to join the European Union while boosting relations with Russia and China. Many in Serbia believe that widespread government corruption linked to major infrastructure projects fueled negligence and undermined construction regulations that contributed to the disaster on Nov. 1 at the Novi Sad train station, which triggered the protests.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Disinformation surge targets Serbia's student protests
Massive student-led protests in Serbia have been met with a barrage of disinformation from pro-government media and social networks, in what analysts say is an attempt to undermine the anti-graft movement. The nationwide wave of demonstrations kicked off after a recently renovated train station roof collapsed in November in Serbia's second city Novi Sad, killing 16 people. With many blaming the deaths on state corruption and inadequate oversight, the protests have piled pressure on the nationalist government of President Aleksandar Vucic. Top officials and pro-government news outlets -- which dominate Serbia's media landscape -- for months have been portraying the students and their supporters as "foreign agents", violent troublemakers planning "a coup" or accused them of being funded by the opposition. The Kurir tabloid said students "terrorise Belgrade" while the Informer tabloid and TV station alleged they are paid by US aid agency USAID and billionaire George Soros -- a regular target of right-wing conspiracy theories. Another pro-government broadcaster, Pink TV, branded the protest movement an uprising supported by Albanian-majority Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia in 2008. - 'Enemies of the state' - Media expert and Belgrade University professor Snjezana Milivojevic told AFP such narratives aimed to frame the protests as an attempted "colour revolution", a reference to the pro-western revolts that shook post-Soviet states in recent decades. Media outlets and officials were also regularly spreading false news about the protesters "to discredit them", she said. In one recent example, students at the University of Arts in the central city of Kragujevac were filming a docudrama about the car ramming attacks that have struck several of the protests and left some people seriously injured. Media outlets such as Informer and TV Prva used footage of the students re-enacting the attacks to falsely claim the students were carrying out the attacks, painting them as perpetrators rather than victims. Bogdan Vucic, a student at the Belgrade Faculty of Political Science, told AFP that the pro-government reporting of the protests "contributes to the antagonisation of students, turning them into enemies of the state -- students who are the children and future of this country". Professor Ana Milojevic from the Faculty of Political Science's Journalism department at the University of Belgrade, said the misinformation sought to "delegitimise the protests". In another incident in March, a plain clothes police officer was injured during a student blockade of the headquarters of state broadcaster RTS in Belgrade. - Photos of old protests - Pro-government media accused the students of attacking the officer, a claim president Vucic repeated on his Instagram account along with an image of the injured officer. But video footage on social media showed the man being hit by a fellow police officer. Vucic later acknowledged that the officer "may have taken a few hits from his colleagues" but insisted that several blows also came from the students and others gathered near the RTS building. Serbia's pro-government media have been serving up "propaganda" for years, Milivojevic said, and their "tactics intensified once the protests started". "Their goal is to criminalise the protests, depict them as violent and show them as ineffective." The student protests are among the largest in recent Serbian history. The demonstrations have regularly attracted crowds of tens of thousands but pro-government outlets have used old photos or aired footage when crowds are dispersing to make turnout seem smaller. "According to media reports, more people gather in smaller squares for regime-backed events than in the largest squares during protests, and the number of students is constantly being downplayed," Milivojevic said. - Combating falsehoods - When high school students joined the blockades, Vucic claimed that minors had no legal right to protest. Pro-government media quickly echoed his words and published headlines, widely shared on social media, that claimed students had the right to protest but minors did not. However, according to the country's constitution and United Nations conventions, people in Serbia are allowed to protest regardless of age. The protesters themselves are not immune to falling for disinformation. One viral video purported to show the "arrest of RTS workers who want to expose the truth about protests". But it actually depicted the 2022 detainment of a small political movement's members who had stormed the RTS building. To combat false news and what they consider biased coverage, student protesters regularly turn to social media to expose perceived disinformation spread by pro-government media. They also have set up "Talk to a student" stands across Serbia to engage with citizens about misinformation, and created a group on messaging app Viber with more than 47,000 members to answer questions from the public. They also have rallied outside the RTS and Informer offices. mp/ks/mfp/fg/bc
Washington Post
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Protesting students in Serbia rally outside pro-government media outlet and stage 'decontamination'
BELGRADE, Serbia — Thousands of people rallied outside a pro-government television station in Serbia on Saturday accused of a propaganda campaign against university students behind months of anti-corruption protests rattling populist President Aleksandar Vucic. Informer TV is among mainstream media outlets in Serbia loyal to Vucic and his right-wing government. Informer TV and tabloid newspaper have repeatedly branded student protesters as extremists during nearly five months of almost daily street demonstrations. Protests have been peaceful , but pro-government media have accused organizers of fueling violence and seeking to overthrow the government under orders from abroad. They have provided no evidence to support those statements. 'For months now, ever since the blockades started, we have been their target, we have been constantly smeared in the media,' student Ivona Markovic said. The protests started after a concrete canopy collapsed in November at a train station in northern Serbia, killing 16 people. The tragedy drew focus on rampant government corruption, triggering demands for accountability and political changes. Protests have put pressure on an increasingly authoritarian Vucic , who is formally seeking European Union membership for Serbia but maintains close relations with Russia and China. Vucic has promised a 'counterrevolution' against the protests. Authorities have threatened legal action against university professors, including calls for the arrest of Vladan Djokic, the head dean at Belgrade University. On Saturday, Vucic visited a camp of his loyalists outside the presidency building, including a group of pro-government university students. He said that 'those who introduced anarchy' at the university would be held to account. Student protests have drawn hundreds of thousands of people, striking a chord among citizens who have been largely disillusioned with politicians. Wearing protective white suits, several students symbolically staged a 'decontamination' performance outside the Informer TV building. A 'wall of shame' displayed Informer's headlines about the protests in the past months, including one alleging protest plans for a 'bloody coup.' Students also launched a petition to limit the television station's access to broadcasting frequencies. The protest dubbed 'DisInformer' was set to last for six hours. 'This is a media war between Informer and students, between lies and truth, abuse of power and resistance,' the students said. 'They (Informer) do not inform, they persecute.' Informer on Saturday received support from top government officials, including the defense minister. The newspaper described the protest outside its building as a 'hostage crisis.' Informer is widely watched and read in Serbia, where independent media have faced limited visibility and where critical journalists have complained of pressure, hate campaigns and lawsuits.
