Hundreds Descend On Serbian TV Offices For Weekly Antigovernment Protest

It was the 56th consecutive anti-government rally organized by the organization 1 Out Of 5 Million, with demonstrators routinely changing locations in the capital to highlight alleged wrongdoing by a long and growing line of officials.

Protesters mounted stickers on the entrances to public broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia that said “So What” and listed scandals involving public officials in the Balkan country of around 7 million people.

They included references to Jovanjica, a farm visited by state officials where police uncovered marijuana cultivation; Krusik, the company at the center of a whistle-blower’s leak hinting at senior corruption within the Interior Ministry; Oliver Ivanovic, a Kosovar Serb opposition leader who pushed for interethnic dialogue in neighboring Kosovo ahead of his assassination there in 2018; and Milan Jovanovic, a journalist whose home was set on fire in a suspected arson attack in December 2018.

“[President] Aleksandar Vucic said, ‘So what if [Deputy Prime Minister] Nebojsa Stefanovic lied about the Krusik [arms company] scandal?’ It’s no ‘so what?’ to us, and never will be,” Valentina Rekovic, a 1 Out Of 5 Million activist, told RFE/RL’s Balkan Service.

Separate protests have also recently warned of a perceived erosion of media freedoms.

The next protest is scheduled for January 4.