Citizens Storm Informer a Day After Vučić's Defeat: the Editor Shouts "Hostage Crisis", the Students Distance Themselves

A day after the Student List won the most votes in Serbia's parliamentary election and Aleksandar Vučić conceded, several dozen citizens entered the premises of the Informer TV station in Belgrade and interrupted its programming. Among them was Dijana Hrka, mother of Stefan Hrka - one of the 16 people killed when the canopy at Novi Sad railway station collapsed.

The demand was simple: an apology. Hrka and the protesters were angry about how Informer had reported on the students, on her and on her son, and about the editor-in-chief's remark about "16 so-called victims" - a remark the outlet denies. They asked Dragan J. Vučićević to come out and apologise publicly. They also asked him who on air had called them Ustaše. "I never said you were Ustaše," he replied.

From "Kolegijum" to "hostage crisis"

Vučićević went live on the show "Kolegijum" and called the situation a "hostage crisis". He claimed there were employees' children in the building, that the crowd was drunk and that they would "kill someone". He called the police, he says, but nobody answered. He also called an ambulance, claiming that one employee had had an epileptic seizure.

At around 18:40 some of the crowd entered the studio. There was a loud argument and shoving, and some people threw objects from the desks - including computer mice. Regular programming was interrupted, and Vučićević and some staff left the studio. Outside the building, riot police formed a cordon and pushed the crowd back, with shoving and attempts to break through. Lawyer Čedomir Stojković claims police beat protesters, used tear gas, and that Hrka was struck with a baton. There were no official figures on injuries or detentions.

Later Vučićević offered his own version: the crowd had tried to set the building on fire, nearly killed him and destroyed equipment "worth tens of thousands of euros". He also mentioned a car full of petrol found nearby. He went a step further, claiming Hrka had personally threatened him. None of it - the arson attempt, the car, the threat - has been independently confirmed.

Pink, eggs and bottles

From Informer the crowd moved on to Pink, another influential TV station close to the government. There, eggs and bottles flew, there was shoving with the police, and passing drivers honked in support. The numbers explain why that address: according to the Bureau for Social Research, from the start of January to the end of July 2026 Vučić got more than 28 hours of airtime on Pink, and in 74.7 percent of it he was portrayed positively. Outside RTS, meanwhile, several dozen people peacefully danced the kolo.

The students immediately distanced themselves. "We do not support storming media outlets and institutions," they said, adding that they would fight for media freedom in parliament and in the institutions. The list's leader, Ilija Srdanović, called on citizens not to resort to violence. Vučić, for his part, spoke of "unprecedented violence" and announced a "long, hard and painful struggle".

The Balkans know this scene by heart: a government falls, and the media that were its voice for years suddenly discover that press freedom is sacred. But the question for the winners matters just as much - will the anger at propaganda end up in the institutions, as the students promise, or at the studio door? The first day showed those aren't two paths leading to the same place.