The 1 in 5 Million protests got a fresh twist on Saturday when protesters gathered in front of the Serbian state TV (RTS) headquarters in downtown Belgrade to "block the main evening news."

Thousands of people gathered in front of the building down the road from the Serbian parliament for what organizers said is a warning blockade under the slogan We’ve Watched You Enough, You Watch Us Now. Saturday’s gathering was held on the anniversary of the first large-scale protest against the Milosevic regime in 1991 which ended in clashes with the police and the military deployed in central Belgrade.  

One of the speakers at this protest was actor Branislav Lecic who organized a post-March 9 protest which blocked central Belgrade’s Terazije square for days in 1991.  

The RTS main evening news (Dnevnik) have traditionally been the most watched news show in the country and were used by the authorities in the 1990s for fierce attacks on opponents and for political and nationalist propaganda. The 1 in 5 Million protest organizers have claimed that the Dnevnik show at 07:30 pm every day has not been giving enough air time to the protests and to the opposition and have demanded at least five minutes of news about the protests, equal time for the opposition and resignations of the CEO and news desk chief.  

Saturday’s protest began at the same place it was starting since December 8 – at the plateau in front of the Belgrade University School of Philosophy. That site is symbolic because the 1968 student protests started in one of the buildings that stand there as did the student protests of the 1990s.

The current protests were launched over an attack on opposition politician Borko Stefanovic under the slogan Stop to Bloody Shirts and changed the name to 1 in 5 Million after President Aleksandar Vucic said he would not bow to pressure from the street even if five million people turned out to protest.  

The RTS board said earlier that the blockade means that the protest organizers “have stepped over the boundary between legitimate protest and illegitimate pressure on all employees of the public service.” The protest organizers responded saying that this is not pressure on staff but on the RTS management.  

Protests are being held on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays in a large number of places across the country including Nis, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Cacak, Smederevo, Leskovac, Pancevo and Uzice among others.