"This is all an orchestrated campaign against Third Serbia which is being personally led by journalist Ana Lalic and the Croatian intelligence service she is working for," Djurdjev told Blic after the journalist asked him for a comment on an incident in the City Council.
The Independent Journalists Association of Vojvodina (NDNV) has condemned the attack on the journalist, saying that Third Serbia officials continued "to spread paranoia of unprecedented proportions, seeing spies and phantoms everywhere around them and marking as targets anyone, especially journalists, who does not fit into their mind-set."
The NDNV called on authorities to investigate the party's sources of financing and establish "whether it is in fact Third Serbia that is an agent of a foreign state." "It is an organisation that has caused great damage to the international reputation of Serbia by supporting separatists in Ukraine," it added.
The NDNV asked Novi Sad Mayor Milos Vucevic of the Serbian Progressive Party how long he intended "to tolerate the arrogance of his coalition partners from Third Serbia."
Third Serbia emerged after the break-up of the right-wing movement Dveri Srpske. As a member of the ruling coalition in Novi Sad, the party has several councillors in the City Council and runs three public companies.