Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic apologized to the public and the state TV (RTS) for calling an RTS journalist reporting on Saturday’s student protest in Nis an imbecile but implied that the public broadcaster’s reporters are not objective.
His open letter included accusations against the public broadcaster, reporters and the students protesting across the country to demand accountability following the deaths of 15 people in the collapse of a concrete awning at Novi Sad Railway Station on November 1. The gathering in Nis was attended by tens of thousands of people from all over Serbia. The letter alluded to people’s courts formed after the liberation of Yugoslavia in 1945 which sentenced a large number of Nazi collaborators, including Serb nationalists and royalists. Vucic accused opposition leader Dragan Djilas of openly calling for his death.
Vucic’s letter as published on his Instagram profile:
„For months, unconstitutional and illegal blockades of roads, railways, and Serbian institutions have persisted. A colored revolution has been in progress, where, hiding behind fabricated, essentially non-existent demands, a minority harasses, intimidates, and perpetrates violence against the citizens of Serbia, seizing the powers of prosecutors, the courts, the police, and moral arbiters who consider themselves above reproach and bear no responsibility or duty. They speak of a Serbia with equal rights for all, while today it is only they who hold rights, acquired by force and nothing else, while everyone else who does not follow them endures the most severe torture, both psychological and physical. Moreover, according to the rules of Western intelligence agencies, they always position themselves as victims, while their victims are the arrogant aggressors.
Just as in 1945, through their actions they extinguish and trample institutions, unconstitutional plenums decide everything, fear has permeated the homes of honest people in Serbia, and we are just waiting for the day when shouts and banners proclaiming „to death“ surface in public.
And they have surfaced. Those who protest and their leaders, led by Dragan Đilas, openly call for the murder of the President of the Republic. Previously, they would wrap such sentiments in euphemisms, but they no longer do so. This has become a part of the new normal in Serbia. Interestingly, everyone remains silent. The silence resonates, just as RTS reporters from Niš remarked, although this time neither they nor their colleagues responded with their usual gentle voice. To be clear, as the President of the Republic, despite the daily torture I endure, I, although not authorized, should not label anyone an imbecile, and I apologize to the citizens of Serbia and to the journalists of the RTS local bureau for having done so.
Additionally, I hold equally poor opinions of the professionalism and objectivity of those journalists; I believe they are a disgrace to their profession, that they are not journalists but political activists.
I believe that in this apology, people see a difference, not only in accountability but also in the respect I show towards those who think differently. I trust that people recognize the contrast between me and those opposition politicians who threaten death, fully aware and without desire for apology, as well as the hypocrisy of the RTS collective that has not condemned the physical obstruction and attack on the RTS team during the protests on February 1 in Novi Sad, nor previously at Autokomanda. After all, the plenum has triumphed at RTS, and my job is to do everything in my power to ensure that law and morality prevail in Serbia. I will always possess enough courage, even if I remain completely alone in my fight for the Constitution, legality, rights, and justice—neither death threats, colored revolutions, nor anything else will intimidate me.
For all these years, I have selflessly and passionately fought for Serbia, together with the people, rising from the ashes, and no one can take that away from me. To those who threaten, I say that life should not be measured by how long you live, but by how you live and what you do for your state and your people. Those who only fear God have long ceased to feel fear for their own lives.
Serbia will prevail!
Long live Serbia!“
Source: N1
