Trolls of the Month: TV Informer and editor Dragan J. Vučićević

The Balkan Troll of the Month is an individual, a group of individuals or a media outlet that spreads hate based on gender, ethnicity, religion, or other diversity categories. The Balkan Troll is selected based on hate speech incidents identified across the Western Balkan region.

In Serbia, August was marked by violent protests. Supporters of the ruling party, as well as the police, reacted violently towards citizens and journalists reporting from the ground. One night, several people, including students, were taken into a garage in the government building, tied and placed on the ground, where the police physically and verbally attacked them.

Student Nikolina Sinđelić was one of them, she later testified about how, after the August 14 protest in Belgrade, Serbia, the commander of the Unit for the Security of Certain Persons and Objects (JZO) Marko Kričak took her to the garage of the main Government building and threatened her with rape, slapped her and hit her head against the wall.

Shortly after she publicly shared about the violence she experienced, the Ministry of Interior instantly issued a statement denying those allegations. The Minister of Internal Affairs Ivica Dačić said that the police did not insult, tie, or mistreat any of those detained that night, and that no one objected to the actions of law enforcement agents.

The next day her intimate photos were shared on social media by anonymous accounts, but also by the former State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Dijana Hrkalović. Hrkalović shared these photos on her official public Instagram account.

Sinđelić, as well as the Faculty of Political Sciences where she studies claims the photos were taken when she was a minor.

On August 20th, the editor-in-chief of TV Informer, Dragan J. Vučićević, showed these intimate photos during a live programme and made nasty comments along with three other guests.

Doing this, Vučićević and TV Informer violated the Criminal Code, several media laws and the Code of Journalists. More importantly, they abused Informer TV to intensify violence towards Sinđelić. Several journalist associations, as well as RDN, called the Regulatory body for electronic media to initiate the procedure against Informer. Furthermore, all of this coincided with the Serbian government announcement to introduce image based sexual abuse (colloquially named “revenge pornography”) as a criminal offense.

This case goes to show the dangerous overlap between the state, media and gender-based violence. The interlock between the state and state controlled and supported media has resulted in citizens being exposed to hate and violence. Instead of protecting a young woman who testified and spoke up about policy brutality and rape threats, pro-regime media took this case as an opportunity to humiliate her and publish private, intimate photos. Mean whilst, there was no acceptance and acknowledgement of her testimony and what the young woman was put through at the hands of public servants.  The media has a role to play in upholding the law, truth and justice. Rather than silencing critical voices, normalising and participating in violence against women and undermining justice, their role is to stand by citizens, expose where there are wrongdoings and demand accountability.