The Radio Television of Serbia is the state-owned public broadcast of Serbia. Since the beginning of these protests, it was often targeted by students since it was also the subject of media censorship. It was accused of being biased and controlled by the ruling SNS (Serbian: Srpska Napredna Stranka) political party. They were also accused several times of misrepresenting the protests, as follows:
On December 11th, 2024, a protest happened at the RTS headquarters, over the broadcast of the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić (1970), and his claims that students are being funded by Western countries to destabilize Serbia. This soon caused outrage among people, who saw it as propaganda, a discrediting tactic, and a violation of media neutrality.
The 1st blockade happened in March 2025, when the headquarters of the RTS were blocked for 22 hours, because a journalist called students a “mob". It was marked by an incident when a police officer was injured in the eye. President Vučić visited him in the hospital and took a selfie with him, and then accused students of injuring him, calling them the plenum Bolsheviks.
Soon, another video was posted online, showing how the same man was actually hit by a Gendarmery officer. Students demanded the apology from both RTS and the president. The 2nd blockade happened in April 2025, which lasted for 14 days, marking the longest continuous protest action of the movement so far.
The reason for this was because they didn't cover the "Tour de Strasbourg", which was the protest cycling action by Serbian students from Novi Sad to Strasbourg, where the Council of Europe is located, and which aims to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law. It's home of the European Court of Human Rights.
This was seen as a clear example of media censorship and political obedience. The blockade eventually ended on April 29th, when the Parliament agreed to reopen the REM competition, marking a rare victory for the movement. Even to this day, RTS is still seen as controversial, as it's basically the government controlled media.
Sad :(
Yes, it's also sad that we live in a society ruled by corruption, where people can't express their opinion without consequences. Serbia is just one example, there are also countries which are even worse, where people can't say anything or else they will be executed.
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Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_hzV6qy150