In Serbia, on April 22, the inbox of the daily newspaper and portal Danas was flooded with threats reacting to the published quote, “Truth, not God”, attributed to Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, published on the Instagram of their portal.
According to the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia, this was the sixth attack on journalists that week, just before Easter. On April 18, the email address of the N1 portal received a threatening email, which the editorial office called the latest in a series of threats sent to this media outlet.
In another case, criminal proceedings were initiated against a man accused of threatening President Aleksandar Vučić on Instagram on April 16.
In Bosnia, a song threatening the international community’s top official in Bosnia, High Representative Christian Schmidt, with death, was widely shared on social networks on April 20, including YouTube, where it has attracted several hundred comments.
The song was sung by protesters at a rally in the mainly Bosnian Serb city of Banja Luka after Schmidt used his executive powers to suspend a property law in Bosnia’s mainly Serbian Republika Srpska RS entity.
In another case, Žarko Kovačević, deputy mayor of Prijedor, insulted his fellow Catholic citizens on Easter day. “When I remember what the Catholic clergy did and are doing to the Serbs, how many victims there were under their blessing, it’s not just that I cannot congratulate them [at Easter], but they disgust me,” he wrote. Kovacevic’s Facebook profile is currently blocked, and no posts are visible.
Pro-Kremlin propaganda rages on in Hungary
The re-election of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party drew opposition claims that freedom and pluralism of the media remain at risk. The editor of the independent weekly HVG, Márton Gergely, accused the Fidesz party of winning by “lies”. He said: “It is quite certain that this election was won with lies”, adding: “Since the election, we have seen that Orbán and Fidesz will not step back from their path.”
