Journalist who was attacked is now receiving death threats after chaos in Leskovac

Threats started arriving after juGmedia portal journalist Dragan Marinkovic, 39, got physically attacked during a protest by about 200 high school students in downtown Leskovac. From the moment of the conflict, which took place in the middle of the protest against the allegedly announced Pride Parade in that town from which Marinkovic was reporting - he has received messages that he would be "slaughtered in the street, that his end would come, and that he is yet to receive a beating."

He told Telegraf.rs that he reported these threats to the police. The threats arrived in the form of comments posted on news articles about the arrest of the attacker on the juGmedia journalist, published on March 2.

"I don't know who's leaving these comments, they sign themselves with a false name. There have been five, six, I forwarded them all to the police," Marinkovic tells us, mentioning two unfortunate things.

For one, he lives in fear, looking back when he's in the street because he believes he's dealing with hooligans. The attacker, he claims, is a member of a supporters' group.

"I don't know him, I just know he is a member of the Vukovi ("wolves") supporters' group," he told us after the identity of 25-year-old D.S. had been established.

Next, he expressed his doubt about a positive outcome.

"So far, no case of attacks on journalists in Leskovac has been solved to benefit journalists, but to benefit their attackers," he told us, mentioning his three examples: "I was threatened twice, once attacked physically. Finally they say there is no basis to initiate proceedings or to determine if the act represents endangering of safety. It’s not just my cases, but also of other colleagues who have been attacked."

After revealing to us his previous bitter experiences, he also explained exactly what happened the day before, when, once again in his career, he came under attack.

"Along with a colleague I climbed onto a flower box in the city center through where the crowd was passing, so we could take photos and videos with the phone. They started shouting at us to stop taking pictures and making videos, which of course we didn't, we were doing our job. Then they started to shake us, trying to grab our phone while passing by, then the one we identified later kicked me in the left shin," he said, adding that he sustained a knee injury and now walks with a slight limp, but that it's not terrible.

However, he reported the attack to the police on the spot and they took the young man, from whose kick he fell to the concrete, away in a police van. As he says, he lost his balance and, lying on the road, expected the kicking to continue. However, that didn't happen. What he did not expect and what is now happening are threats to his safety.

"I have to work and move around. There is a certain amount of fear, after all, these are (football) supporters, hooligans. They could take revenge," he revealed to us how he feels after everything that's happened.

(B.P.)