{"id":11264,"date":"2025-06-07T14:37:36","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T13:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/?p=11264"},"modified":"2025-06-16T14:51:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T13:51:58","slug":"serbian-tabloids-misused-zoran-gavrilovics-statement-he-did-not-say-they-would-kill-everyone-with-guns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/2025\/06\/07\/serbian-tabloids-misused-zoran-gavrilovics-statement-he-did-not-say-they-would-kill-everyone-with-guns\/","title":{"rendered":"Serbian Tabloids Misused Zoran Gavrilovic\u2019s Statement: He Did Not Say They Would \u201cKill Everyone\u201d With Guns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Original article<\/em><\/a> (in Serbian) was published on 5\/6\/2025; Author: Teodora Koledin<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, several tabloid web portals published a news article with a manipulated quote from Zoran Gavrilovic, Director of the Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI). \u201cSCANDAL! The ideologue of the blockers said: Unfortunately, we don\u2019t have guns, but if we did, we\u2019d kill them all! (VIDEO)\u201d\u2013 states the headline of the article published by Alo<\/a>. The same claim was also shared by the following web portals: Novosti<\/a>, Informer<\/a>, Pink<\/a> and Republika<\/a> (the web portal of Serbian Telegraph). However, upon retrospective review of this TV appearance, Tragac concluded that the second half of the alleged quote was completely fabricated.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking about the upcoming local elections in Zajecar and Kosjeric during the morning program <\/a>on N1 television, Zoran Gavrilovic stated the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI think a victory would be – looking at it from the perspective of civil society and the strengthening of our fragile and weak democracy – to make serious reports and provide evidence of what happened in those two cities. To share that with international organizations, with the European Commission\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When asked by the journalist whether those reports would have any effect, the Director of the Bureau for Social Research replied:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWell, what can we do? Simply, we don\u2019t have guns. We don\u2019t even have media to use like guns- because that\u2019s what this government does. Unlike the 1990s, this government now uses media like guns. So our role is to work on what we\u2019ve discussed – to gather information, to insist on the rule of law, to insist that institutions do their jobs\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To illustrate, here\u2019s how the headline would look if we bolded all the parts added by the tabloids and left unbolded only the actual words spoken:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cUnfortunately<\/strong>, we don\u2019t have guns, and if we did, we\u2019d kill them all!<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We also reached out for comment to Zoran Gavrilovic, director of BIRODI, who told Tragac that \u201cfive web portals published the same story with a headline containing a falsehood\u201d, referring to a shortened version of his statement with something added that he never said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis case shows that there are media outlets tasked with belittling and discrediting public appearances where facts about the nature of the government and its illegal behavior, primarily by the President of the Republic, are presented. This is retaliation for pointing out violations of the Constitution and the law by the President. At the same time, it indicates the collapse of media pluralism through coordinated media editorial offices\u201d, Gavrilovic explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It should also not be overlooked that the Director of the Bureau for Social Research was baselessly labelled as the \u201cideologue of the blockers\u201d, referring to students involved in blockades – a label that has recently become common in pro-government media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tragac has recorded<\/a> more than 15 individuals who, over the past six months, have been assigned this \u201ctitle\u201d by certain media outlets, including: Ivan Videnovic, Goran Markovic, Dinko Gruhonjic, Srdjan Skoro, Natasa Kandic, Milan St. Protic, Srdjan Zunic, Zoran Gavrilovic, Cedomir Stojkovic, Biljana Stojkovic, Cvjetin Milivojevic, Jovo Bakic, Zdenko Tomanovic, Nemanja Sarovic, Bozidar Prelevic, Milivoj Beslin, Goran Jesic, and others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Original article (in Serbian) was published on 5\/6\/2025; Author: Teodora Koledin On Tuesday, several tabloid web portals published a news article with a manipulated quote from Zoran Gavrilovic, Director of the Bureau for Social Research (BIRODI). \u201cSCANDAL! The ideologue of the blockers said: Unfortunately, we don\u2019t have guns, but if we did, we\u2019d kill them […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[563,596,28],"class_list":["post-11264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-checks","tag-civil-society","tag-quotations","tag-serbia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11264"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11269,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11264\/revisions\/11269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seecheck.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}