Violation of basic human rights in Serbia
January 16 – January 29, 2026
In the previous period, we noted a series of incidents that indicate an organized and systematic attempt to silence critical voices through threats and brutal digital targeting.
The academic community was shaken by the cases of politically motivated dismissals of Professor Jelena Kleut at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad and the secretary of the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade Marija Radovanović, which followed their support for student protests. The peak of repression at the university occurred on January 21, when the intervention of the Gendarmerie, with the use of physical force, led to the violent expulsion of students and professors from the Faculty of Philosophy building.
Along with pressures on colleges, dangerous attacks on media workers continue. N1 television journalists were the target of a terrifying targeting campaign, while numerous journalists and columnists received explicit death threats and experienced persecution. These attacks were followed by coordinated bot and hacking activities aimed at shutting down the Instagram accounts of independent media.
For more information about these and other cases recorded in the previous period, see the full report below: