Dragan Djilas, a founder of the opposition Alliance for Serbia grouping, said on Monday he filed criminal charges against the Informer tabloid’s editors for hate speech, adding the daily published a serious of offensive articles about him, the Beta news agency reported.

According to Djilas, since June 10 until now, the tabloid has called him “a thief,” “an opposition gang,” “an idiot,” “an arrogant jerk,” “an advocate for Kosovo’s independence who plans violent political changes,” “a tycoon,” “a traitor,”, “a mercenary…”

The charge sheet said that the Informer’s editors published such articles “with an intent to spread and incite the hatred of Djilas because he is a political foe of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), thus committing a crime known as racial and other discrimination, which carries a penalty up to three years of imprisonment.

“In today’s Serbia hate speech is an official way of addressing everyone who disagrees with the (President) Aleksandar Vucic’ politics. And in history, the hate speech appeared only in the totalitarian regimes, and one should remember how such governments ended and in what historical defeats they led their nations,” Djilas said.

The Informer tabloid is generally believed to be close to the SNS and its leader Vucic.