Protesters storm Serbian TV channel Informer, demand apology

Protesters stormed into the studio of Serbian broadcaster Informer on Monday night and interrupted a programme hosted by its owner, Dragan Vucicevic, demanding he apologise for the channel's coverage over the past two years. After a heated exchange, the crowd pushed Vucicevic out of the building.

When police arrived, some of the protesters threw stones and broke the station's shopfront window, according to Greek broadcaster ERT. The same night, young protesters also tried to force their way into the studios of TV Pink, another broadcaster seen as close to the outgoing government, but police stopped them before they got inside.

Informer had served as a leading pro-government outlet during the student-led protest movement that toppled President Aleksandar Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party, ERT reported. The channel published the home addresses, phone numbers and other personal details of protesting students, branding them foreign agents, and filmed opposition journalists and their families, the broadcaster said. One journalist left Serbia three months ago after the channel broadcast footage of his school-age daughter, according to the report.

The Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia, the country's largest media union, repeated a call on Monday for regulators to revoke Informer's broadcast licence over its coverage, ERT said. The Student List, the movement that won last month's parliamentary election, condemned the storming of the station and urged citizens not to take revenge, saying it would pursue media freedom only through institutions and parliament. Vucic called the incident a "raid" and, in a video message, described it as unprecedented and monstrous violence against freedom of expression.

Separately, Vojvodina's public broadcaster RTV, part of Serbia's state television network RTS, publicly apologised to viewers on Monday for biased coverage in recent years. Students sent an open letter to RTS and media regulator REM the same day, demanding the resignations of RTS's director-general, his deputy and its editors-in-chief.

Serbia's political transition remains stalled weeks after the Student List's election victory. Under the constitution, the new parliament cannot convene until the election commission reviews all objections and certifies the result, a process that must finish within 10 days of voting ending; the outgoing speaker then has up to 30 days to call parliament's first sitting. Ana Brnabic, the former speaker who has been acting president since Vucic resigned the presidency on 27 September, could delay that process for political reasons, which would force the Student List to wait at least another month to form a government, ERT reported.