Day Against Hate Speech: “Lying idiot,” “notorious Serb-hater”…

How Serbian tabloids are marking the Day Against Hate Speech

“Do you really think the president is going to deal with your every stupidity, you lying idiot?!”; “Get therapy, woman,” as well as “A 100-degree moron” and “Idiots came to sue Vučić.”

With headlines like these in newspapers and online portals, Serbia’s tabloids are marking 18 June, the Day Against Hate Speech. The purpose of this article is certainly not to spread the insults and slurs with which certain pro-government portals and newspapers poison Serbia’s media space, but rather the opposite — to highlight this burning problem.

Thus, Informer carried the statement of SNS MP Milica Nikolić, who called Marinika Tepić a “lying idiot” because she publishes information allegedly linking Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to criminals. In that context, Pink published a reaction from ruling-party member Nevena Đurić Nikitović, claiming that “Marinika Tepić’s lies have long crossed the boundaries of common sense.”

“Whatever your mind comes up with, and then says out loud, has long since crossed the boundaries of common sense! Just so you can prove you’re the most loyal of Đilas’s rags! But this whining about how nobody listens to you or reacts to your nonsense is truly tragicomic. Get therapy, woman,” Pink reported.

Get ready, anyone who touches Vučić

Tabloids under Vučić’s control call Tonino Picula, the European Parliament’s rapporteur, for example, a “notorious Serb-hater,” while next to the name of engineer Dragan Đajić they add the phrase “a 100-degree moron,” in a story alleging that he supposedly saw Ana Brnabić entering a restaurant and then invented that she decided to flee Serbia.

People who came to the Prosecutor’s Office to support the lawsuit filed against Aleksandar Vučić for visiting patients badly injured in the North Macedonia fires — patients in intensive care, where entry is strictly prohibited — were also “cheerfully” given similar epithets.

“Idiots came to sue Vučić because he visited the injured from North Macedonia,” read the headline about that event.

Meanwhile, Novosti calls Aleksandar Kavčić — whose foundation raises money for teachers whose salaries were stolen by the state — a CIA agent, while B92 relays a statement by Ana Brnabić calling the rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, “a plague that has befallen higher education.”

Who is spreading hate in Serbia’s media space

However, from numerous headlines in Serbian tabloids — especially on the Day Against Hate Speech — it is evident that they often merely transmit hate speech; they don’t have to invent it themselves, since the slurs come from top government officials.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in May 2025 that “the rise of hate speech, both online and in traditional media in Serbia, is alarming,” adding that this practice has intensified dramatically since the beginning of the student protests.

The Press Council’s Secretary General, Gordana Novaković, explained that since the beginning of the year, professors and students have been targets of orchestrated media smear campaigns intended to discredit them, often acting in a coordinated manner, outside normal editorial autonomy, with political backing and almost no consequences.

Women are the primary targets of hate speech in the media and on social networks in Serbia, according to monitoring results from the NGO Reporting Diversity Network. Hate speech is also dominant toward members of the LGBTI community and toward national minorities.

Author: M. L. J.