KROKODIL Festival Addresses Targeted Smear Campaign and Obstruction Attempts

04 Jul KROKODIL Festival Addresses Targeted Smear Campaign and Obstruction Attempts

Belgrade, July 4th, 2025 – Today, KROKODIL Association held a press conference at the Media Center to inform the public about the circumstances surrounding the seventeenth KROKODIL Festival, about the targeting and intensive smear campaign, encompassing over five hundred media announcements and over five hours of coordinated programming, carried out by pro-regime media outlets. Speakers at the conference included Milena Berić, Executive Director of the KROKODIL Association, Vladimir Arsenijević, President of the KROKODIL Association, and Miloš Janković, attorney at law.

Milena Berić opened the conference by stating that the smear campaign began five days before the start of the KROKODIL Festival, coinciding with the release of the detailed program that included film screenings and discussions commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. This sparked a wave of negative, manipulative, and offensive media publications, accompanied by online threats, harassment, and physical intimidation directed at the KROKODIL Association’s premises.

Berić further explained that the negative campaign intensified. Two days before the Festival’s opening, the Museum of Yugoslavia informed KROKODIL that they had received a directive from the Ministry of Culture instructing them to publicly distance themselves from the festival. Berić reminded attendees that for seventeen years, the KROKODIL Festival has been symbolically held in front of the Museum of Yugoslavia, where it was founded in 2009 as a joint initiative between the Municipality of Savski Venac and a number of publishing professionals. The festival was established to promote regional literature from the post-war period, literature of the common language, and to serve as a platform for reconciliation, confronting the past, and fostering a culture of remembrance.

Representatives of the Museum of Yugoslavia were told to do what they had to do, with the hope that the matter would end there.

However, on the opening day of the KROKODIL Festival, which featured over 150 participants, including over 50 from European Union countries, in 47 literary and socio-political programs, the festival’s technical production team began setting up the stage equipment, using electricity from the Museum (as in previous years, based on a valid memorandum of cooperation). At that time, representatives from the Ministry of Culture arrived with an explicit demand to disconnect the cables providing electricity to the KROKODIL Festival.

Berić emphasized that this action marked a shift from a smear and target campaign to a physical attempt to prevent and obstruct the event. Thanks to the support of colleagues from the non-governmental sector, a generator was obtained, allowing the festival to proceed.

On the same day, the KROKODIL Association received an invitation to a meeting between government officials, embassies, and the non-governmental sector regarding the selection process for new members of the REM Council. Despite initial disbelief at receiving this invitation for dialogue with the authorities while they were simultaneously obstructing the festival, which receives significant support from the European Union, embassies, and cultural institutes, the opportunity was used to directly inform government leaders and the Ambassador of the European Union Delegation to Serbia about the situation (please read the entire letter HERE). This was done in the hope of ending the obstruction and ensuring the festival will be held in accordance with the high standards set during the seventeen years of its existence.

Then, just one day before major civic and student protests, the smear campaign against KROKODIL escalated, and KROKODIL temporarily became a symbol of everything targeted by pro-government media. As the regime introduced new methods of repression against protesting citizens, the KROKODIL Festival was misused in order for the government to confront dissidents, students, the opposition, etc. In addition to the continuous media smear campaign and the engagement of public figures and individuals from the political mainstream, the government organized its own literary event with the message “Blockaders – Serbs are not a Genocidal Nation” while citizens were protesting and demanding accountability.

After Milena Berić presented this sequence of events, Vladimir Arsenijević took the floor and emphasized that one of the main “red flags” for this reaction from the authorities was the program commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide, which was a joint effort by several organizations. At KROKODIL, it included screenings of several documentary and feature films, recordings of theater performances, and the promotion of Dragan Popović’s book “Losing Humanity”. Vladimir added that certain individuals, such as Dinko Gruhonjić, Marko Vidojković, and Dejan Atanacković, also served as “red flags”. They participated in a panel entitled “Writers and Freedom”, during which they discussed creativity in times of repression, the meaning of creative freedom and journalistic ethics today, and its cost. Several representatives of pro-government media were present and reported negatively on the panel in real time.

Vladimir further noted that it was interesting that the presence of participants from Kosovo and Ukraine at this year’s KROKODIL Festival went completely unnoticed by tabloid, right-wing, and pro-government media outlets.

The fact that the Srebrenica program specifically triggered so much negative media attention and reaction can also be explained by the news on July 1 that the former commander of the Republika Srpska Army in Serbia was acquitted of charges for crimes in Srebrenica, creating a smokescreen and preventing a stronger public and media reaction to the scandalous verdict.

Finally, attorney Miloš Janković, representing the KROKODIL Association, stated that the statements made in some media outlets regarding the festival and the people behind it violate the standards of good media practice. They do not represent objective, impartial, and truthful information, nor do they serve the public interest, and they are not in accordance with the Law on Public Information and Media. Through the deliberate distortion of facts and untruthful reporting, employees of the KROKODIL Association have been placed in a situation where they fear for their safety and their honor and reputation have been damaged. Accordingly, all available legal means will be taken to protect the rights of those targeted by the current system.

At the end of the press conference, Milena Berić drew attention to the alarming state in Serbia, the signs of emergence of true dictatorship, and called for the urgent involvement of the international stakeholders to end the escalation of brutal repression against citizens, stop the violence, and release all those who have been illegally detained in recent days.