Vucic on NIN Cover Page: They Promoted a Superb Rifle – Point It at Me, Not Others

Aleksandar Vucic (Beta/Milos Miskov)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, said on Nov. 28 that he is “OK with” the picture on the front page of the weekly NIN and that he feels good about it because the accusations against him are but copies of texts from Milovan Brkic’s Tabloid magazine.

“All the texts and activities of [my] political opponents – all of these are just rewrites of Milovan Brkic. If I were to tell you about this rascal, this racketeer… And I’m the target this rifle is pointed at, as I refuse to pay the racket,” said Vucic before the journalists at the opening of a Chinese factory in Kragujevac.

According to him, all articles published on arms industry had been seen before in this “mafia-linked publication” and some people have taken up this “base and foul” policy as their own official policy.

“I’ll still continue to fight for the right for everyone to publish what they want. But let [their words] be directed at me, turn those rifles against me, don’t point them at others. I’ve no problem with that. As you point all the sniper guns at me, I’ll, in turn, try to point my pen to some other part of Serbia where we’ll be building new factories and railroads,” Vucic added.

Vucic also said that he is not bothered by the fact that the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia did not object to the NIN’s cover page, saying he did not expect them to do so.

“I’m OK with the NIN’s cover, in every sense. They’ve advertised a superb rifle – a good sniper gun, made in Serbia, it hits its target a kilometer away. All of this is to show just in what kind of dictatorship we’re living in. A dictatorship in which you can freely break into RTS [public service] and do whatever you want. You might recall how in the time of democracy poor Ranko Panic died just because he wanted to walk with us down Makedonska street,” concluded the president.