“I am not guilty, and I was just doing my job,” said Darko Gligorijevic, a journalist for the Zoomer news portal, as he defended himself before a misdemeanor judge on Thursday. Gligorijevic was arrested last June during a protest at the Studentski Grad university campus in Belgrade.
The journalist is accused of “disturbing public peace and order through shouting and yelling” while he was covering a demonstration against Milos Pavlovic, the leader of a pro-regime group known as the “students who want to study.” Last year, the group set up a pro-government camp in central Belgrade, widely referred to as “Caciland.”
Gligorijevic maintains that he was on a professional reporting assignment, performing the same duties as any other journalist at the scene.
His attorney argued in court that the police were “misused” on the night of the arrest and asserted that there is no evidence to support the charges against her client.
The arrest and subsequent legal proceedings have drawn criticism from media watchdogs. The Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) condemned the move, questioning why a journalist would be detained in the first place for a minor misdemeanor charge.
The Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS) also issued a statement, characterizing the arrest as “unlawful and unacceptable.”
The date for the next hearing has not yet been announced.
Source: N1
