\u201cI went through everything that happened in the last six years,\u201d Doj\u010dinovi\u0107 says. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy when it\u2019s like this, in one place. Spying, deportations, media campaigns, investigations, threats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Earlier this year KRIK faced perhaps its most dangerous moment yet, when the country\u2019s malevolent, government-connected tabloids painted a target on Doj\u010dinovi\u0107\u2019s back by associating him with a murderous criminal group. But now, the threats are coming from another direction: The Serbian court system. With three new lawsuits filed just last month, KRIK now faces an incredible nine cases at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The campaign against the outlet stands in striking contrast to the praise Serbia\u2019s government has been hearing from the European Union on its reform efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou have done a lot of hard work. This hard work pays off,\u201d said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, on a recent visit<\/a>. \u201cIt is amazing to see the progress.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her audience included Serbia\u2019s President Vu\u010di\u0107, whom she addressed three times as \u201cdear Aleksandar.\u201d And while she noted that the country still had work to do, the problem seemed to be a matter of not-quite-sufficient technical competence. \u201cIt is essential to progress on the rule of law,\u201d she said. \u201cI know that you are working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, nearly all of the men who sued KRIK have some connection to Vu\u010di\u0107 or his ruling party. One is the head of the intelligence service. Another, who has family members in parliament, joined Vu\u010di\u0107 on the campaign trail. And one who asked not for monetary damages, but jail time for two KRIK reporters, is the president\u2019s\u00a0kum<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 a sacred designation roughly equivalent to a blood brother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their lawsuits represent \u201canother attempt of the ruling party to silence and criminalize investigative journalists,\u201d says Maja Bjelo\u0161, a researcher with the Belgrade Center for Security Policy. \u201cThe media and civil society in Serbia are perceived as \u2018enemies of the state\u2019 because they represent a corrective factor and one of the few barriers to full autocracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some would disagree with this grim assessment, pointing to how far Serbia has come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has been barely 20 years since the overthrow of Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107, a corrupt demagogue who had ruled since the days of communist Yugoslavia. Since then, Serbia\u2019s economy has grown by leaps and bounds. It has made progress on normalizing its relationship with Kosovo, a largely Muslim country that broke away and has proclaimed its independence. And it has taken step after halting step to bring its institutions in line with EU standards. Just weeks ago, the country\u2019s accession process made another advance<\/a>, with the opening of several new \u201cclusters\u201d of negotiation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the ferocious campaign unleashed against KRIK illustrates the folly of treating the creation of a democracy as a box-ticking exercise. In response to criticism, the Serbian government has created media strategies, action plans, and so many working groups they\u2019re difficult to tell apart. There is a functioning legal system \u2014 after all, journalists are routinely sued even in the world\u2019s most democratic countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But counting this as progress, experts say<\/a>, is little more than empty formalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll the laws on paper look very similar to what we might encounter in the U.K. or Canada or Germany,\u201d says Jasmin Mujanovi\u0107, a political scientist and southeastern Europe specialist. \u201cBut it\u2019s in how the laws are actually exercised, or how the institutions operate, that we see their true nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disregarding this, he says, grants the Serbian president a veneer of plausible deniability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs soon as [the suits] are brought up with the European Commission, his argument will be: \u2018What are you talking about? This is the independent judiciary, this is the independent public prosecutor. I\u2019m the president. I can\u2019t possibly intervene.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s how KRIK\u2019s journalists see it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s like we\u2019re pretending to be a democracy,\u201d says Bojana Jovanovi\u0107, the outlet\u2019s deputy editor. \u201cAnd because it\u2019s a democracy, anyone can press charges or sue anybody else. I think that will be the explanation from our government, and from the ruling party. But these are definitely more than ordinary lawsuits, because most of the people are connected to the system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lawsuits, which range from the questionable to the absurd, are indeed extraordinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In one case, three policemen sued Jovanovi\u0107 over a story written by a different KRIK journalist named Bojana. In another, a businessman sued for reputational damage and mental anguish because KRIK described him as an \u201caccused narco boss\u201d \u2014 in a story about how he\u2019s on trial for growing over a ton of marijuana. And in the criminal case brought by Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s \u201cblood brother,\u201d he is asking the court to jail two KRIK reporters for publishing his \u201cpersonal information,\u201d even though the story<\/a> only examines his businesses and offshore companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But though many of the suits have a comic element, there\u2019s nothing funny about the threat they pose. If KRIK loses them all, the damages would add up to nearly a million dollars, or three times its yearly budget. Even if the outlet wins everything, it will face considerable legal costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps more harmful still are the countless hours reporters and editors must spend doing legal battle instead of journalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have to work with our lawyers, we need to prepare for trials, we need to go to hearings, and that means that we need to spend a lot of time fighting,\u201d says Jovanovi\u0107. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the money, it\u2019s the time. And time means that our work is waiting for us to come back to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s an additional element of absurdity in the fact that all of this careful work concerns lawsuits that have little to do with the facts. One hint is that none of the supposedly aggrieved parties ever contacted KRIK to ask for corrections or clarifications. In many cases, they never even responded to requests for comment before publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey don\u2019t care too much about the results, actually,\u201d said Rade \u0110uri\u0107, a lawyer with the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia. \u201cIt\u2019s not even kind of a blow to the budget. The idea is to create a specific situation in the KRIK editorial room. It\u2019s a kind of huge pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beyond the specifics of the claims, both KRIK journalists and outside experts note, the legal onslaught should be viewed in context of a larger state-directed flood of abuse that flows through many channels. Aside from lawsuits and official investigations, the outlet has faced a torrent of slander from members of parliament<\/a> and, perhaps even more dangerously, popular pro-regime tabloids<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is Serbia’s specialty,\u201d Doj\u010dinovi\u0107 says. \u201cBrutal media campaigns that crush everyone without mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLiterally every week, sometimes every day, I appear in pro-government outlets where they present me as a spy, a foreign agent, a mafia figure, or a terrorist,\u201d he says. \u201cThey also expose details from my private life. My chat conversation with my ex-girlfriend was in the newspapers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The unitary nature of the attacks \u2014 from the press, from the state, from individual officials \u2014 is hard to prove, but KRIK\u2019s supporters know it when they see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When a story is disliked by top officials, \u201cthe editors and owners of the tabloids react instantly,\u201d \u0110uri\u0107 says. \u201cFirst of all, personally, on social networks. A few hours later or the next day, you have a reaction in the tabloids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I can\u2019t connect them [to government figures] directly, I don\u2019t have proof,\u201d he admits. \u201cBut when you see that kind of reaction in 10 or 30 minutes, you can see that they\u2019re defending them. In addition, all these tabloids are co-financed by the state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In such an environment, the state\u2019s assurances that it\u2019s creating structures to protect journalists ring hollow. Sometimes they do useful work, \u0110uri\u0107 says. But his organization, along with several others, quit a working group convened by the government<\/a> when it remained silent in the face of the tabloids\u2019 onslaught on KRIK earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn that government group we have some members of the executive, which are actually the biggest problem,\u201d \u0110uri\u0107 says. \u201cHow can we talk with them? If the concrete pressure starts from the prime minister and you\u2019re sitting in the same room with the prime minister? What is there to talk about, if they started the pressure last night?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Article 19, an international organization that promotes freedom of expression, conducted a virtual fact-finding mission to Serbia earlier this year. After meeting government officials, journalists, and specialists, its report<\/a> concluded that the environment for journalists\u2019 safety had deteriorated, and pointed out that state efforts were insufficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can establish all these paper tigers,\u201d says Sarah Clarke, Article 19\u2019s head of Europe and Central Asia. \u201cBut without political will, nothing can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSerbia has an obligation to create an enabling environment for media freedom,\u201d she says. \u201cThey are not. They are creating a restrictive and dangerous environment by a lack of sanctioning for the political rhetoric that is used against journalists. And we know where that language emanates: at the highest levels of power.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.krik.rs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/211208-Tuzbe-Head-005.png\")
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