Guests and caterers at a restaurant in downtown Belgrade, where Serbian Finance Minister Siniša Mali was also present, chanted "long live students," after which the minister showed them the middle finger.
Shortly after, a journalist who happened to be in the restaurant ran up to Mali to ask him why he did it, and instead of answering, he snatched her phone, N1 reports.
Journalist Danica Ilić, along with her friend, was at the same restaurant as Mali on Saturday.
As he tells N1, the moment the minister paid the bill and started to leave, the entire restaurant, including guests and caterers, shouted "long live students."
"The guests present, with whom I spoke later, say that during his exit, the minister showed the middle finger to those present who were chanting 'long live the students'," Ilić told N1.
"We noticed Minister Mali in the restaurant and when we left, we greeted the students with applause and shouted 'long live the students', the entire restaurant joined in and on the way out, Siniša showed us the middle finger, by the way, not painted red," one of the guests present told journalist Ilić.
According to her, as Mali was leaving, a journalist approached him, introduced herself as a journalist and asked for a statement, but instead of answering, the minister snatched her phone.
"He forcefully snatched the phone from my hands. I started after them. We left the restaurant. He asked me why I was recording him and that I wanted to talk to him, where I explained that they had just chanted 'long live the students', and he showed me the middle finger, but I also reminded him that he was a public official, in a public place, and that as a journalist I could ask him what he thought about it. The whole time we were walking down the street, the minister was carrying my phone, and after discussing what a public office was and what a journalist's job was, he finally put my phone down on a flower pot," Ilić recounts.
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