29 Jan Three Freedoms Under the Magnifying Glass: January 16 – January 29, 2026

Posted at 14:17h in Three Freedoms Under the Magnifying Glass by

Belgrade, January 29, 2026

Violations of basic freedoms in Serbia

January 16 – January 29, 2026

 

In the recent period, we have recorded a series of incidents pointing to an organized and systemic attempt to silence critical voices through threats and brutal digital targeting.

The academic community has been shaken by cases of politically motivated dismissals of Professor Jelena Kleut at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad and the Secretary of the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade, Marija Radovanović, following their support for student protests. The peak of university repression occurred on January 21, when a Gendarmerie intervention, involving the use of physical force, led to the violent eviction of students and professors from the Faculty of Philosophy building.

Alongside pressures on universities, dangerous attacks on media workers continue. Journalists from N1 television were targets of a chilling campaign, while numerous journalists and columnists received explicit death threats and experienced stalking. These attacks have been accompanied by coordinated bot and hacking activities aimed at deactivating the Instagram accounts of independent media outlets.

For more on these and other cases recorded in the recent period, please see the full report below: