Brnabic and Vucevic Join Informer Rally Outside REM

Ana Brnabic, Milos Vucevic and Bratislav Gasic were among those gathered on Wednesday, November 4, on Nikola Pasic Square in Belgrade, where a rally in support of Informer television was held outside the building of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM). The rally began at 10:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before the REM Council session was scheduled to start.

Brnabic is acting President of Serbia and a vice president of the Main Board of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), Vucevic is the party’s president, and Gasic is defense minister in the caretaker government. At about 10:55 a.m. the crowd began chanting “Get out,” aimed at the Council members, and “We won’t give up Informer” could also be heard.

Who called the rally and who showed up?

According to Tanjug and the K1 portal, the rally was called by the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (ANS) and the Center for Social Stability. The Novi Sad portal 021 reports differently, saying TV Informer itself organized it. The accounts diverge, and none of them cites a document or statement that would settle the question.

In its call, ANS said that those who swear most loudly by media freedom cannot at the same time demand that dissenters be silenced, and that the association will neither stay quiet nor back down. The Center for Social Stability said the terror against dissenters, and media in particular, which it says has been carried out for days since the election, has become unbearable. According to the rally’s slogan as relayed by Informer, those present came to “defend media freedom in Serbia” and to send the message “We won’t let media be shut down.”

The sd.rs portal, citing Informer’s coverage, says those present included:

• Ana Brnabic, acting President of Serbia
• Milos Vucevic, SNS president
• Marko Djuric, foreign minister in the caretaker government
• Bratislav Gasic, defense minister in the caretaker government
• Nebojsa Bakarec

Tanjug and K1 mention only three: Brnabic, Vucevic and Gasic. None of the reports we read gives a crowd figure, and sd.rs writes of a “large number of citizens.”

What did Brnabic and Vucevic say?

Brnabic announced the rally a day earlier on Instagram. Tanjug carries her words:

Tomorrow we defend media freedom in Serbia. We defend freedom of speech and freedom of thought. Everything that is the very foundation of any democratic society, and that is under threat after only a week of terror and reign of fear by the Student List.

Brnabic added that in 14 years of rule by Aleksandar Vucic and the SNS not a single media outlet was shut down, and that state officials never sued any outlet, despite, as she put it, all the lies published about them.

According to sd.rs, Vucevic said at the rally that he has no good expectations of the session: “I can’t say I expect anything good, given everything that has happened in Serbia since October 26.” On that day, according to K1, a group of Student List supporters broke into the TV Informer premises in the evening, threatened employees, wrecked the offices and interrupted the broadcast, and then attacked police officers outside the building.

What did Dragan J. Vucicevic say?

Informer editor in chief Dragan J. Vucicevic arrived outside the REM building at about 10:48 a.m. He addressed the crowd, and K1 reports that he said the aim of the demand to revoke the license is to shut down the only Serbian television station, and that he called on everyone to respond. It was announced that he would attend the session with several colleagues.

Before the rally, Vucicevic described the proceedings against Informer as politically motivated. Sd.rs recalls his earlier statement about the consequences for staff:

330 people work here, a young company with an average age of 35, we have 150 minor children who live directly off this company! And you will shut it all down just because you don’t like our editorial policy and because we have a position?!

On that occasion he also appealed to US President Donald Trump and his administration, claiming that media freedom is under threat in Serbia.

What did the REM Council decide?

According to sd.rs, the session began at 11:15 a.m., and Council president Stevica Smederevac addressed those present and put the agenda to a vote. The session was public and streamed on the regulator’s YouTube channel. Nova.rs, citing Cenzolovka, reports that journalists were removed from the session and are following it from the corridor. Footage, Nova.rs writes, shows Vucicevic and Dejan Vukelic entering the building.

As Danas reported, the Council opened proceedings against Informer television over insulting comments about Zoran Gavrilovic and Council member Rodoljub Sabic, and over the broadcast of a state documentary film during the “Kolegijum” program. An examination procedure was also opened against Kurir television, whose representatives were invited to the next session. A draft rulebook on the procedure for appointing members of the Radio-Television of Serbia management boards was adopted, and Smederevac proposed Milan Todorovic as acting director of the Regulatory Authority, which was approved unanimously.

Nova.rs’s report, published at 11:34 a.m., contains no decision to revoke the license. The Council decided at its October 29 session to handle the initiative of 32 media associations and civil society organizations, submitted on October 27, by having its expert staff first compare all previous complaints against Informer with the initiative’s allegations. New cases will be opened for matters not covered by earlier complaints, and the initiative itself will be discussed on the basis of the data established that way.