By Dinko Gruhonjić, university professor and independent journalist based in Serbia
I am a journalist and university professor working on politics, human rights and accountability for war crimes committed during the 1990s. These topics remain taboo in Serbia, and journalists who cover them are routinely targeted. My story is one of those.
In March 2024, a coordinated smear campaign against me and my family was launched by regime-controlled media. A manipulated deep fake video was used to falsely portray me as an admirer of Nazi criminals, followed by the appearance of a death threat on the building where I live with my family.
Since then, daily threats, public vilification and harassment have become routine. My phone number was published online, and I was labeled an enemy of the state and a leader of opposition movements. No meaningful protection was provided.
My experience is not exceptional. It reflects a model of repression increasingly visible across the wider continent, from Serbia to Russia and Georgia.
The authoritarian playbook across Wider Europe
Across all of these countries, allowing for slight differences of course, journalists are systematically criminalised and delegitimised. Critical reporters are portrayed as “foreign agents,” “traitors” or enemies of the state. Strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), tax inspections and selective law enforcement serve as tools of pressure. Journalists are not imprisoned en masse, but they are kept under constant threat.
While the tactics vary, digital repression plays an increasingly central role for persecuting journalists across these countries. Coordinated online harassment, bot campaigns, doxing and deep fake content are used to destroy reputations and incite hatred, just like they did with me.
These tactics are coupled with a not so pluralistic media landscape. For example, more than 90 percent of Serbian media operate under direct or indirect regime control. Independent outlets still exist, but they survive under permanent financial and political pressure (with tactics like in the previous section). Control is exercised not primarily through censorship, but through tabloids and television channels that function as instruments of intimidation.
Authoritarian systems also rely on the normalisation of violence. Threats against journalists are very rarely investigated, creating an atmosphere of impunity. As for physical attacks, they are fairly rare, but they happen – and there is also little interest in fully investigating them. The message is clear: you are on your own.
Why confronting the past remains taboo in Serbia
All of these different characteristics are emblematic of the experience of living in modern Serbia. Here the president acts as the country’s chief editor, setting daily narratives and publicly targeting journalists and academics. Once labeled an enemy, a journalist becomes the subject of daily attacks in prime-time programmes. Journalists are not the only targets though. University professors, researchers and students are increasingly treated as internal enemies.
Authoritarian systems fear not only journalism, but also knowledge and memory.
Those who insist on confronting war crimes and historical responsibility undermine the ideological foundations of nationalist authoritarianism, which relies on denial and permanent mobilisation. This is why dealing with the past remains one of the most dangerous forms of journalism in Serbia today. Our system today represents a political and ideological continuity with the 1990s and the wars of that period. While the language has changed, the logic remains the same: erase accountability, especially for war crimes and treat critical voices as threats to national unity.
Behind Serbia’s democratic façade
Serbia is often presented as a country with free elections and pluralistic media. In Western media, this system is frequently described as an “illiberal democracy.” In reality, it functions as a system that combines a democratic facade with systematic repression.
Independent journalism remains one of the last lines of defense against this fraudulent version of democracy.
But it cannot survive on courage alone. Without sustained international attention, solidarity and pressure, the cost of doing journalism in Serbia will continue to rise: quietly, legally and systematically. Authoritarianism no longer needs to silence journalism. It only needs to make it dangerous.
Dinko Gruhonjić works at the Department of Media Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad. He is the program director of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina and the head of the Beta News Agency’s bureau for Vojvodina. For over a year, he has been publicly targeted by the regime and portrayed as an enemy of the state. He is a human rights defender and an anti-fascist.
