The Independent unions of journalists in Serbia demand Belgrade’s authorities’ condemnation of the public address of a convicted war criminal in the morning show on the Belgrade Happy TV, the Beta news agency reported.

The Union of Independent Journalists in Serbia (NUNS) and the Independent Society of Vojvodina’s Journalists (NDNV) said in a statement they were “disgusted” with the Happy TV move to let Ratko Mladic, the military commander of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina to address the audience in live programme.

Mladic is sentenced to life imprisonment in the first instance. He appealed the conviction.

The journalists’ union also demanded the Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to prove her words during an interview with the Deutsche Welle that she was “against war crimes and war criminals.”

The statement added journalists were not particularly surprised by the Happy TV’s move, describing it as “dangerous tabloid TV, a regime’s mouthpiece which has a benevolent attitude toward all criminals from the dark age of the 20th century.”

“It’s been a while since this TV behaves according to Mladic’s famous command: “Stretch their brains,” the mantra under which he kept Sarajevo under siege for almost four years, in one of the worst encirclements of a city in the history of civilisation,” the unions said in the statement.