Journalists and media retailers in Serbia filed a account-high 134 legal complaints in 2025 linked to offences dedicated in opposition to them, says a brand original document on press freedom in Serbia. Of your entire cases opened remaining One year, simplest three resulted in convictions, whereas most were brushed apart.
“Violence, threats, hatred, and hate speech [against journalists] accumulate grown so powerful that they’ve simply turn out to be part of everyday existence and are changing into normalised, which is shocking for a nation striving to uphold the rule of law,” stated Vida Petrovic Skero in Belgrade on Wednesday whereas presenting the Recount on the Safety of Freedom of Expression within the Judicial Machine of Serbia. Petrovic Skero is a prominent retired resolve in Serbia and one amongst the document’s authors.
The document – printed by the Slavko Curuvija Basis, a non-profit organisation centered on media independence and responsibility – analyses the ethical protection of journalists from 2024 by the first three months of 2026.
Miljana Trifkovic, co-author of the document, stated that the size of violence in opposition to journalists for the length of this period “has turn out to be alarming and extremely touching on”, particularly after the birth up of the mass protests across the nation that trigger off in step with the crumple of a camouflage at the Novi Unhappy railway say in November 2024 that left 16 folks unimaginative.
“The response of the authorities, which in some cases used to be nearly entirely absent, is extra possible to support than to discourage and deter doable attackers of journalists,” she stated.
The document also analyses the expand of complaints filed in opposition to publications, particularly tabloids and bonafide-authorities media, that normally breach the Serbian Journalists’ Code of Ethics and that rob part in smear campaigns in opposition to authorities critics and fair media.
The evaluation of the cases reveals that legitimate-authorities media are increasingly extra the employ of hate speech, sensationalism and defamation and that they’ve step by step breached the presumption of innocence and the apt to privateness. The trials in opposition to them normally remaining spherical two years, whereas the frequent amount of shatter they’re ordered to pay is spherical 80 euros.
“Prolonged proceedings lead to compensation that’s insufficient to cease future abuses, and the are expecting also arises as to the extent to which such low amounts provide ample redress for the violation of rights,” the document states.
In cases launched in opposition to fair or investigative media, which normally violate the Code of Ethics, the courts extra normally set high shatter amounts. The document notes that “disproportionately high claims for damages are one amongst the criteria taken into legend when assessing whether a lawsuit constitutes a SLAPP”.
SLAPPs are complaints, normally launched by folks in vitality, aimed at draining the monetary and psychological resources of critics.
The document also notes that Serbia is but to align its rules with EU regulations that will perchance perchance enable the nation to fail to remember these complaints early and build the monetary burden of the trial on the accusers.