Informer TV Stormed: Vucicevic Led Out of Newsroom

Several dozen people entered the Informer television building in Belgrade on the evening of Monday, October 26, after which the regular program was interrupted and editor-in-chief Dragan J. Vucicevic was led out of the newsroom. Outside the building, scuffles and clashes then broke out between the crowd and police in riot gear.

The events came a day after the snap parliamentary elections, as supporters of the Student List celebrated their win at Slavija. Sources give different times for the entry: the Beta agency and N1 say it was around 6:40 p.m., Espreso says around 6 p.m. Among those who went in was Dijana Hrka, the mother of Stefan Hrka, who died when the canopy collapsed at the railway station in Novi Sad. N1 reports that she was the one who called on citizens to gather outside Informer.

What happened in the newsroom?

According to Beta, it is not known how the crowd got into the building, because Informer was not broadcasting live at that moment. The channel then switched to a live feed of the argument in the newsroom, which lasted about ten minutes. On the “Collegium” show, Vucicevic called on police and the ambulance service to send a vehicle to evacuate staff, and then phoned Ilija Srdanovic, the head of the Student List, to ask him to call off the crowd. Srdanovic replied that he first had to check what was going on, in words reported by N1:

“You have said all sorts of things about me, a great many untruths - I simply cannot believe you are telling the truth now.”

The crowd demanded a public apology from Vucicevic for insulting students and their supporters, Hina reports. According to the same agency, Hrka got in his face and shouted: “You insulted my dead child.” Hina also recalls that on one of his shows Vucicevic called the victims in Novi Sad “so-called victims.”

Telegraf, citing a description from the Informer broadcast, writes that the crowd got in the faces of Vucicevic and others, insulted and spat at them, threatened them with matches and covered cameras with a flag. B92 attributes the same description to Tanjug. Beta and N1 describe an argument and shoving, and N1 adds that after a while citizens surrounded Vucicevic in another part of the building, filmed him and dictated how he should apologize.

How Vucicevic left the building is also described in different ways. Beta says demonstrators pulled him out of the newsroom, Hina says he left under escort, and Telegraf writes in one place that the crowd dragged him out and in another that colleagues led him out. Vucicevic himself says members of another police unit evacuated him. According to the Informer website, as relayed by Telegraf, the Gendarmerie evacuated all employees.

Who entered the building, and who denies it?

Videos of the group outside Informer were published by the assemblies of Batajnica, Vozdovac and Brace Jerkovic, as well as the “Kreni-Promeni Vozdovac” group, B92 and Telegraf report. The video description read: “Let’s hold a collegium together.” The Konjarnik assembly, on the other hand, denies taking part: according to its statement, at the time of the entry it was on a walk toward Slavija Square, having set off at 5:30 p.m. down Bulevar kralja Aleksandra.

The organization “Students in Blockade” issued a statement on X that same evening:

“We understand the joy, the emotions and the need to finally celebrate victory after everything we have been through. But now it is important that we remain dignified and responsible. We do not support break-ins at media outlets and institutions, nor do we call for them. We will liberate the media in the Assembly, through an institutional fight for freedom and professional journalism. We ask all citizens to disperse peacefully and head home once the celebration at Slavija ends tonight.”

In an Instagram message relayed by N1 and Hina, Srdanovic reminded people that the election results had not yet been declared:

“The elections are not over yet, the election results have not been declared. We must remain dignified to the end. Do not resort to any kind of violence. This is what your Student List and your student movement ask of you.”

What do Vucicevic and Vucic claim?

After the evacuation, Vucicevic told Euronews Srbija that the crowd had tried to set the building on fire and that equipment worth tens of thousands of euros was destroyed. His words:

“They attacked Informer television, tried to set the building on fire, they almost killed me too. If it hadn’t all been on camera, they would literally have killed me.”

He also said he did not see any students among the crowd, that police did not react in time and that a car full of gasoline was found near the building. “If it were not for the delayed reaction of the police, they would have burned us,” he claims. He announced a return to the studio: “I said I would not, at the cost of my life. I am not afraid of you. We are back in the studio tomorrow.” Vucicevic also said on live air that the entrance was damaged and one wing of the door torn off; this has not been independently confirmed.

Aleksandar Vucic, the former president of Serbia, responded with a video address (N1 says on Instagram, Hina says on TikTok):

“Tonight we watched violence without precedent, monstrous violence. The break-in at Informer is an attack on freedom of expression, freedom of public speech, freedom of journalism.”

Vucic added that most police officers did not want to do their job: “Thanks to the few honorable officers who wanted to do their job, because most today did not, in order to curry favor with the new authorities.”

What do Hrka and lawyer Stojkovic claim?

Other sources describe the clash outside the building in a very different way. Telegraf, based on social media footage, claims the crowd threw objects and fireworks at police, struck them with metal bars and pushed them back. Beta and N1 report that police pushed back the demonstrators and that citizens broke through the cordon several times. According to Hina, several hundred people were prevented from entering the building.

Lawyer Cedomir Stojkovic claims on X that police attacked citizens for no reason:

“They threw things, they beat people. Dijana Hrka was hit with a baton. They sprayed pepper spray in people’s faces.”

In a video message, Hrka said: “They beat us up tonight.” She also said she had been called to come and that everything had been arranged with police: “The agreement was that Dragan would be taken out and arrested. That the program would be stopped.” None of the sources we reviewed confirms these claims, and the official number of injured and detained people is not given in the available sources as of publication. The responses of police and prosecutors to the allegations by Hrka and Stojkovic are not in them either.

Later that evening a group of citizens gathered outside the TV Pink building, where a police cordon stood, and several dozen people went to RTS, where, according to N1, they protested peacefully.

What did journalists, universities and the EU demand?

The Journalists’ Association of Serbia asked police to protect employees of Informer and Pink, and asked the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) to review the work of those outlets. Civil society organizations, journalists’ associations and journalism faculties in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nis announced they would send REM an initiative to revoke Informer’s license. The head of the EU Delegation to Serbia, Andreas von Bekerath, called on everyone to refrain from violence and to voice criticism of the media in a dignified way and through regulatory mechanisms.

This morning N1 reported that Nis TV, also known as “Nis Informer,” is not airing its own program but relaying Informer’s. An employee who remained anonymous told Beta that editors had ordered them not to come to work until further notice. The sources we reviewed do not link this to the break-in at Informer and give no reason. According to publicly available data cited by N1, that television station does not hold a REM license.