Serbia’s war on the press: The full playbook in 10 chapters
Journalism, in the second quarter of the 21st century, “has never been more complicated or more dangerous,” according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’s latest Press Freedom Index, released ahead of World Press Freedom Day on 3 May.
The Index outlines a global landscape that has progressively led to intensified attacks on a heavily weakened press – within both democratic and authoritarian states.
“Since the attacks of September 11th 2001, legislation governing national security and defense secrecy has expanded worldwide. These laws are now being used to prosecute journalists and restrict access to information in the name of fighting terror. But their true goal is to prevent coverage of topics of public interest, whether in authoritarian regimes or democracies.”
This year, amid wars and geopolitical confusion, press freedom conditions have declined in 100 out of 180 countries and territories.
WATCH: RSF Index – Press freedom is at its lowest point in 25 years
Spotlight on Serbia
Serbia – ranked 104, down eight places from last year, and with the biggest decrease within a region noted for facing the “steepest decline” – deserves more than a mention.
Watchdog groups have long been sounding the alarm, with reports by Committee to Protect Journalists and Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), amongst others, live tracking the scale and severity of attacks in the country.
While most authoritarian governments will rely heavily on a few tools, Serbia, under President Aleksandar Vučić, is running the full playbook; employing a deliberate, coordinated system of suppression, each tool calibrated for maximum individual effect.
Most of them are documented within data and reports obtained by Media Freedom Rapid Response, and linked below.
1 Historical impunity
Serbia’s impunity problem is 27 years old – and deepening, according to the International Federation of Journalists, on the anniversary of the April 1999 assassination of Slavko Ćuruvija. The founder of Serbia’s first private daily Dnevni Telegraf, and the magazine Evropljanin was a fierce critic of then president Milošević. (Vučić was Minister of Information at the time.)
According to leaked secret police files, Ćuruvija had been followed by 27 members of the State Security Service in three shifts until shortly before his death. Four former state security officers were convicted twice for the murder, and twice acquitted on appeal; the final acquittal in February 2024.
2 Death threats and smear campaigns
Veran Matić, chief executive officer and editor in chief of Belgrade’s leading independent radio and television station B92, and activist journalist who dedicated decades to the Ćuruvija case, is perhaps the most prominent example: earlier this year, a pro-government NGO produced a documentary, Evil Age 2, branding Matić an “enemy of the Serbian state and society,” a “foreign agent,” and accusing him of high treason. This was broadcast – in prime time – on numerous pro-government outlets.
Ćuruvija had been subjected to identical smear campaigns in the lead up to his murder.
A MFRR delegation who met with Matić on a mission to Belgrade last month found him facing open death threats.
3 Digital surveillance
In February 2025, Amnesty International’s Security Lab found that two journalists from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), were targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. Amnesty noted these were the seventh and eighth confirmed cases of spyware use against journalists in Serbia.
4 Legal Harassment
The same Amnesty International report details how BIRN is fighting four SLAPP suits filed by public officials including the current mayor of Belgrade.
5 Physical attacks during protests and 6 Accreditation and Access Denial
On 17 January 2025, police forcibly removed five journalists – from N1 TV, Nova TV, Radio 021, and the daily Danas – from Novi Sad City Hall, preventing them from covering an opposition-led protest.
7 Economic strangulation
Identified in RSF’s 2025 Index as the most insidious and least visible forms of press suppression globally, this is rampant in Serbia, where state actors control advertising flows, independent outlets operate in a hostile financial environment – and pro-government news portals are on the increase.
Mapping Media Freedom details how President Vučić called the reporting of independent news outlets N1 and Nova S “pure terrorism,” which led to both channels being dropped from the satellite television service EON SAT – instantly stripping them of a major distribution platform.
8 Platform/distribution censorship
In October, the European Federation of Journalists reported on a coordinated smear campaign targeting journalists; in January, the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS) recorded at least 12 coordinated bot attacks against Instagram accounts of independent media outlets in Serbia.
9 Cyberattacks on infrastructure
Distinct from spyware targeting individuals – or bot campaigns on journalists’ social media accounts – this direct hacking of media outlets’ digital infrastructure is aimed at operational disruption. Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) records that in early 2026, several Serbian outlets suffered hacking attacks targeting their systems.
10 Forced Exile and self-censorship
While exact numbers are hard to document, journalists in exile have long been reporting on the impact of Vucic’s presidency on the news media.
Worth special mention: Gendered attacks
According to MFRR data, Serbia accounts for the highest number of registered gender-based violence incidents against journalists in Europe. This includes online smear campaigns, threats of sexual violence, derogatory comments about physical appearance.
Also see: The rising criminalisation of journalism calls for stronger legal protections and robust criminal justice policies
There appears to be no limit to the methods and means with which one can suppress media freedoms. But journalists and journalism perseveres. In Serbia, independent journalists continue to play a crucial role in holding truth to power – and as the world watches democracy backsliding in the Balkan state, all hopes are now that they can hold and out echo Hungary’s historic overthrow of authoritarianism.
