Arson attack on car prompts journalist to announce withdrawal from engaging in journalism

Dušan Ostojić, a civic activist and editor of the portal aleksinac.net from Aleksinac, a town near Niš, said after his car was recently firebombed that he would almost certainly give up journalism, which he deals with as a hobby, because the message he received in the form of the burning of his car was completely clear to him.

Police soon arrested a 25-year-old suspected of perpetrating the attack on the vehicle, then two weeks later also arrested a 46-year-old Aleksinac resident suspected of ordering the arson attack in exchange for the writing-off of a financial debt.

Ostojić said that everything had left his family frightened. His work on the portal saw him write about thefts of babies, then local cases of corruption and crime, while the last article he authored dealt with the fierce struggle against the felling of trees lining the centre of Aleksinac. It was thanks primarily to his published works that the Serbian public was informed about this issue.