Vojvodina journalists’ group: Police given orders from the top to attack reporters

NDNV singled out the assaults on Zarko Bogosavljevic, editor of the Razglas News portal, N1 journalists, and members of the student-run Blokada.info.

“This incident is part of a deeply alarming and ever-worsening trend of police attacks on journalists,” NDVD said.

The Association pointed out that “the fact that our colleagues are clearly marked with ‘Press’ vests not only fails to protect them — it almost seems to do the very opposite.”

“The enthusiasm with which officers and gendarmerie troopers are striking journalists leaves no doubt that they have been given orders to do so from the very top of the Internal Affairs Ministry and from the highest levels of the state,” NDNV wrote in a press release.

The Association said that a growing number of reporters are now forced to wear helmets, gas masks, and protective gear at protests “as if they were covering a war zone rather than the center of a European city.”

“Journalists are being hit with pepper spray, battered with shields, violently pushed around, and blocked from accessing areas of clear public interest,” the press release said.

NDNV demanded that the authorities immediately identify and punish the officers who attacked Bogosavljevic, the N1 crew, and the Blokada.info students.

They further called on the Internal Affairs Ministry to establish clear, binding protocols for how police must treat media during protests, to guarantee unrestricted access and reporting freedom for all clearly identified journalists, and to provide additional training for units deployed at public gatherings on journalists’ rights and the state’s obligations regarding media freedom.

“These attacks are not just assaults on individual journalists — they are a direct attack on the public’s right to be informed,” NDNV stressed.

“A society in which journalists have to put on helmets and gas masks to cover protests, only to be attacked by state forces, is nothing less than outright authoritarian repression.”