Students Blockading Vojvodina Public Service Dispersed, RTS Still Surrounded

Photo: 021.rs

In the early hours of April 15, members of the Gendarmerie forcefully ended the blockade of the Radio-Television of Vojvodina (RTV) in Novi Sad, while the Belgrade facilities of the Radio-Television of Serbia (RTS), downtown and in Kosutnjak, remain blocked.

The RTV building, located in Novi Sad’s Miseluk neighborhood, had been besieged by protesting university students since the evening of April 14.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has announced that members of the Novi Sad Police and Gendarmerie cleared the entrance to the RTV building and are currently working to identify all the perpetrators of crimes and misdemeanors so that charges can be filed.

As of the morning of April 15, the RTV public service has resumed regular broadcasting. The entrance to the building has been marked with graffiti messages including ‘Journalists without ethics,’ ‘Report on Strasburg,’ ‘You should be shut down’ and ‘Resignations, then prison,’ while the entrance plateau has been painted red.

The coordinate blockades of both the RTV and RTS public services were staged by students of the universities in Belgrade and Novi Sad.

In Belgrade, the students have shut down access to the RTS facility downtown from both Takovska and Aberdareva street and have blocked the gates to the facility in Kosutnjak. The protestors have also erected a tent on the plateau at the Takovska street entrance.

The protesting students maintain that the blockades have been organized in response to the public services’ untruthful reporting. “The public media service is working against us all. Since the Regulatory Authority for media does not exist, no one can take them in hand. This protest will last until a new competition for [seats in the Council of] the Regulatory Authority for Digital Media is opened or until the RTS is shut down,” the students have written on Instagram.

Meanwhile, the RTS has demanded that the students cease blockading its facilities.

The public service has stated that, by obstructing access to its buildings and the work of its reporters, the students are putting “unacceptable pressure on a media house which has been most trusted by the public for years.” According to the RTS, the sole purpose of the blockade “is to shut the RTS down,” given that the accusations against it are untrue since it has been reporting on the student protests, which have been going on for five months now.

Students of the universities in Belgrade and Novi Sad had previously staged similar, unannounced rallies in front of both the RTS and RTV facilities on March 10, blocking all entrances and demanding that the services report objectively on the protests. The blockades lasted about 20 hours. The April 14 blockades are the first follow-up to the March obstructions and were also unannounced.