ZVECAN, Kosovo -- Mladen Perovic was being hailed as a hero after brutal clashes this week between protesting Serbs and international peacekeepers drawn reluctantly into an escalating Balkan crisis.
But haters gonna hate.
Just ask the ethnic Serbian and Albanian journalists Perovic was sheltering inside his small cafe when all hell broke loose next door in one of the four mostly Serb-populated municipalities in northern Kosovo where tensions with Pristina are highest.
"What's happening to him now is a call for a lynching, and it must be stopped," said Zorica Vorgucic, an RTV KiM journalist from Gracanica, another Serb-majority community about an hour away, south of the River Ibar that is sometimes viewed as dividing majority ethnic Albanian and Serb areas.
Vorgucic was referring to an accusation by the Serbian-language Telegram channel Slovenski Medved, which espouses radical Serbian nationalism and Russian militarism. It said Perovic was a "traitor" for trying to ensure the safety of journalists caught in clashes between Serbian protesters and NATO peacekeepers in Zvecan on May 29.
Perovic was singled out after the head of Kosovo's national journalists' association, Xhemajl Rexha, who was also in Zvecan, praised him on Twitter for helping reporters who were stuck in the cafe as mayhem reigned outside. "We finally made it out," Rexha tweeted that evening. "Only possible because the Serb owner of the coffee shop escorted us [back] to our cars and made sure we were all safe."
Vorgucic and other journalists were in northern Kosovo to cover the standoffs after Kosovar police forcibly secured town halls to seat mayors elected on around a 3 percent combined turnout in Zvecan, Leposavic, Zubin Potok, and North Mitrovica.
Throughout the day in Zvecan, with Serbian residents and local leaders crowded around the municipal building that Kosovar police had cordoned off, NATO's KFOR troops tried to keep the two sides apart.
Hundreds of customers passed through Perovic's cafe, he said, which was just meters away.
Hours into the blockade, dozens of soldiers from the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo since 1999 and dozens of Serbian protesters were hurt in the melee and ensuing effort to disperse the crowd.
Everyone, including Perovic, scrambled once tear gas and stun grenades went off. Once he thought the worst was over, Perovic said, he went back to check on his property and found journalists -- "both ours [Serb] and theirs" -- sheltering inside.
About 30 of them -- mostly ethnic Albanians -- remained hunkered inside for around three hours as the violent atmosphere outside continued, according to eyewitnesses including an RFE/RL correspondent who was inside the cafe. KFOR troops were not allowing journalists access to the municipal building at the center of the protest.
Once he wanted to close for the night, Perovic said that he appealed to the crowd of Serbian protesters outside. They vowed that "no one will touch" the ethnic Albanian journalists among them. So Perovic eventually led them and other journalists to their vehicles.
"I don't know what I did to be a 'traitor' and to be targeted," Perovic said the next day. He said that probably 500 people had visited the cafe amid the tensions on May 29. "Everyone came to cool off, to drink water," he said. "I didn't choose the guests, nor did I do anything that would be unfair."
Multiple journalists have spoken out to condemn Slovenski Medved's treatment of Perovic and urged solidarity in the face of such threats.
"This madness must stop and we, as journalists, first of all, must show solidarity and the [journalists'] associations must be more active in this case," said Budimir Nicic, another journalist from Gracanica.
Multiple attacks on journalists and their vehicles were reported during this week's unrest, mostly in Zvecan.
The Association of Journalists in Kosovo shared reports of many such incidents on May 29 and 30, mostly in Zvecan but also in Leposavic, Zubin Potok, and North Mitrovica. They included bullets striking a reporters' car as it passed near a group of masked men, and intimidation as an RTV 21 crew tried to film protesters surrounding a Kosovar police vehicle.
A vehicle carrying two RFE/RL reporters was attacked with an explosive shortly after a protest in Zubin Potok.
RFE/RL's Balkan Service could not determine who is behind the Slovenski Medved accounts, whose followers number in the hundreds, with only a few thousand regular views across YouTube, Twitter, and other platforms.
But the group is similar to many of the anonymous accounts that proliferate in the Balkans and whip up Serbian nationalism alongside anti-Western tropes and pro-Russian militarism.
They also frequently target post-Yugoslav governments like those in Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and North Macedonia, where Serbs are in the minority.
The mayoral buildings in all but North Mitrovica have been controlled for years by the so-called "parallel" institutions run by Serbs and backed by neighboring Serbia, which 15 years after Kosovo's declaration of independence still doesn't recognize its former province's sovereignty.
Serbian nationalism has quietly thrived under Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, a right-wing darling during Slobodan Milosevic's rule in the 1990s who subsequently tempered -- but not necessarily tamed -- his nationalist inclinations. He and his allies routinely talk of a broader Serbian community that spans international borders.
As president, Vucic has alternately hectored and negotiated with Pristina but consistently rejected the idea of explicit recognition of Kosovar sovereignty even despite recent signs of progress.
Serbian ultranationalists in Serbia and neighboring states are vocally opposed to recognizing the independence of a former province that even internationally inclined Serbians like all-time tennis great Novak Djokovic this week called the "heart of Serbia."
The by-elections at the center of the current unrest were sparked by mass resignations in November 2022 by influential Serbian mayors, police, and other officials essential to the "parallel system" that helps local Serbs avoid recognition of Kosovar institutions.
Vucic used a major rally in Belgrade last week to condemn Kosovo's swearing-in of ethnic Albanian "alleged mayors" in the north without local Serbs' votes.
Prominent nationalists dominate the Serbian List political party in Kosovo along with other elements of the "parallel system" used by Belgrade to influence and administer to Serbs in Kosovo.
The head of Serbia's Association of Independent Journalists (NUNS), Zhelko Bodrozic, told RFE/RL's Balkan Service that the public smear directed at Perovic reflects an atmosphere charged by authorities on both sides of the border.
"Normal communication by Serbian and Albanian journalists and solidarity and mutual protection have become the target of extremists, who want to start conflicts," Bodrozic said.
