Who pays for anti-LGBTQ+ campaigns in the Balkans? A new investigation from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) offers one piece of the answer, and it leads back to a Serbian government office.
Published on October 16, BIRN’s investigation found that since 2023, Serbia’s Directorate for the Diaspora, part of the foreign ministry, has paid at least €250,000 to Serb diaspora organisations in North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia itself. BIRN identified the recipients as groups that publicly back the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), echo Russian narratives, glorify war criminals, or promote anti-gender rhetoric.
Most of the money went to cultural, language and youth projects on paper. The LGBTQ+ connection is in who received it.
The Banja Luka connection
Two of the recipients are based in Banja Luka, the main city of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska entity:
- Srbsko sabranje Bastionik received about €34,000 for six projects between 2023 and 2025, focused on Serbian national, religious and cultural identity, and Kosovo.
- Jadovno 1941 received over €13,500 for a website about victims of a World War II camp complex.
According to BIRN, in 2023 both groups campaigned against an LGBTQ+ event in Banja Luka. The event was banned, and activists and journalists were assaulted later that day.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it was one of the darkest moments for queer Bosnians in recent years. We covered the political climate around it, and the court ruling that later found former Republika Srpska president Milorad Dodik had discriminated against LGBTI people with his statements in the run-up.
The two groups’ activity didn’t stop there. In 2024, BIRN reports, both called for a draft law on protection from domestic violence and violence against women to be withdrawn, claiming it would introduce “gender ideology.” The bill was dropped and did not return to parliament.
BIRN also reports that in August 2026, Bastionik urged “patriots” to attend a memorial for convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić, and that it co-hosted a documentary festival with RT Balkan in 2025.
What BIRN found elsewhere
The investigation covers more than anti-gender campaigning. In North Macedonia, the Serbian Cultural Centre in Skopje received €84,500 since 2023, the most of the groups there, and a Bitola group’s leader has promoted online content denying the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, BIRN reports. In Serbia, recipients include groups whose members were filmed working in an SNS call centre during the 2024 local elections.
Analysts BIRN spoke to read the pattern as political. Banja Luka analyst Tanja Topić said such groups act “as an extension of the authorities.” Political scientist Duško Radosavljević said: “This is a regime rooted in the Serbian Radical Party.”
What the reporting doesn’t say
It’s worth being precise. BIRN does not report that Serbian grants paid directly for the 2023 campaign against the Banja Luka event; the grants it lists were for identity, language and memorial projects. What it shows is that public money from Belgrade went to organisations that also ran anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-gender campaigns.
Serbia’s foreign ministry and the Directorate did not respond to BIRN’s requests for comment. Bastionik and Jadovno 1941 did not respond either. Of the leaders who did reply, Zoran Žugić of the Bitola group denied the funds had political purposes.
Why this matters
Across the Western Balkans, LGBTQ+ activists have warned for years that the “anti-gender” movement is organised and well connected, not a few angry voices. We’ve written about how anti-gender disinformation spreads across the region. Investigations like this make the funding trail visible.
The fix BIRN’s sources propose is not complicated. Milica Pralica of Ostra Nula called for “transparent criteria, publicly accessible data, and equal accountability for anyone using public money.”
For queer people in Banja Luka, that kind of transparency would be a reasonable start. Public money shouldn’t help groups that campaign against people’s right to gather.
