In the last few decades, the former Yugoslavia registered for Westerners mostly in terms of its devastating wars. The region is today at peace, but in Serbia, a less visible war - this time between independent media and the government - is raging, DW reports.

For many Serbian journalists today, the atmosphere is every bit as bad as in actual wartime.

"I say this as someone who spent her childhood and youth under the dictatorship of Slobodan Milošević," said Jovana Gligorijević, a domestic politics journalist at the weekly news magazine Vreme, which was founded in 1990 by journalists fighting state censorship.

"Back then, we also had wars that Serbia started, but that was the only thing worse than what we are experiencing now," Gligorijević continued. "Everything else today is worse and more dangerous than it was then."

Since January, Serbian journalists pursuing a skeptical critique of the country’s government have endured a record number of violent attacks, both professionally and personally. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Serbian law enforcement and political activists committed 34 assaults in less than two months this summer while journalists were covering anti-government protests.

The recent rise in violent attacks in the country correlates with increased coverage of student-led protests following the collapse of a canopy at the Novi Sad railway station on November 1, 2024, which killed 16. Journalists have covered the protests in an attempt to shine a light on the government’s negligence. But they often find themselves frozen out of accessing government records and representatives. At protests, journalists have been assaulted and caught up in arrests.

"Violence against journalists in Serbia – which Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has repeatedly warned about – has reached a sad new record," said the watchdog organization. "This figure exceeds all annual totals of physical assaults recorded in Serbia since at least 2020."

RSF ranks Serbia 96th out of 180 countries on its 2025 World Press Freedom Index. Other surveys have also documented nearly 100 press freedom violations against about 200 journalists in Serbia within the first six months of 2025.