Serbian Public Investment Minister Darko Glisic blamed N1 for the armed incident in the regime-supporter tent camp in central Belgrade, continuing the attacks on the station by state officials.
Two major Serbian media organizations spoke out against Glisic’s words. The Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS) condemned his attack on N1 while the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) warned of increasingly frequent attacks on critical media adding that Glisic is deceiving the public and endangering N1 staff.
A man entered the tent camp put up in the park and road between the Serbian presidency building and parliament on Wednesday, shot one of the men in the tent and started a fire. The man surrendered to the police. Social media video posts showed the incident developing and a separate video showed the man with his face to the pavement telling police officers that he wanted to get killed. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told a news conference that the man was a retired state security officer, identifying him by name and calling the incident a terrorist attack while Belgrade chief prosecutor Nenad Stefanovic said the man is being charged with attempted murder. Pro-regime media blamed the opposition and protesters. There is ongoing speculation that the incident was staged.
Glisic told the pro-regime TV Pink that N1 “media recruited” the shooter adding that the incident was “the result of everything that has been done in the past year”, alluding to the anti-government protests following the Novi Sad Railway Station tragedy that claimed 16 lives.
Glisic said the shooter caused the incident “to please N1 journalists”, and alleged that N1 anchor Danica Vucenic and reporter Mladen Savatovic who, he wrongly claimed, called for violence and said that the torching of Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) offices was a peaceful protest.
“The dark media kitchen by the criminal (Dragan) Solak and every one of the creators of the colored revolution created an atmosphere in which killing someone who thinks differently is completely normal,” Glisic said. He accused the independent media operating as part of the United Media company of “painting a target on President Vucic’s forehead”. He made a comparison between the attack on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico saying that the shooter in Wednesday’s incident is almost identical to Fico’s attacker. He said the alleged attack on Vucic was prevented by what he called “a small oasis of freedom” which showed that there are “free-thinking people who want to save their state”.
Glisic is a high-ranking SNS official and a close associate of President Vucic. He suffered a stroke several weeks ago during an appearance on the TV Pink morning show.
Source: N1
