The steering board of Serbian state television RTS on Monday apologised to the citizens of Serbia and neighbouring countries who were the subject of insults, defamation and features that today would be defined as hate speech and were broadcast on RTB and RTS in the 1990s.
The newly-appointed RTS steering board said in a statement on its portal that, in line with the broadcasting law, it felt the need to take a position on the social and political role of its legal predecessor in the 1990s.
The steering board said the RTB and RTS programme in that decade was nearly constantly and grossly abused for the purpose of discrediting the opposition in Serbia and its leaders and as part of the propaganda of the then undemocratic regime.
The RTB and the RTS hurt a number of times in their broadcasts during the 1990s the feelings, moral integrity and dignity of the citizens of Serbia, humanist intellectuals, the political opposition, critical journalists, some minorities, minority religious communities, and some neighbouring peoples and states, the statement said.
