21 Mar Three Freedoms Under the Magnifying Glass: March 8 – March 21, 2024

Posted at 11:38h in News, Three Freedoms Under the Magnifying Glass by

Belgrade, March 21, 2024

Violations of basic freedoms in Serbia

March 8 – March 21, 2024

 

The past two weeks have been marked by multiple, dangerous examples of threats to freedom of expression, assembly and association. The representatives of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) lead the way in violating basic civil and political freedoms.

For days, SNS officials and pro-regime media and tabloids have been targeting journalists from the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina (NDNV). Due to the orchestrated campaign and the spread of misinformation and lies about Ana Lalić Hegediš and Dinko Gruhonjić, NDNV issued a public statement. In the statement, they stated that “It is frightening that the public lynching of journalists is being encouraged from the highest political positions, because it actually represents the imposition of “mob law” and a call for the overthrow of the legal system.”

In addition to the journalists, the young activists of the SviĆe group, Nikola Ristić and Ivan Bjelić, were exposed to a public lynching by the Prime Minister in the technical mandate and the new President of the Assembly, Ana Brnabić. The attacks come after the activists filmed SNS members visiting buildings in Belgrade and listing the tenants in order to see “where they can report phantom voters”, claims Ristić. Brnabić accused the activists of “fascism” and “violence against women”, thereby relativizing these concepts, the prevalence of which in society has never been addressed by the President of the Assembly when they actually exist and even take the lives of women in Serbia.

We have seen that activists in our country are also exposed to institutional repression on the example of peace activist Aida Ćorović. Ćorović was summoned to serve a two-month prison sentence because she did not pay the fine for throwing eggs at the mural of Ratko Mladić. The unjustified and disproportionately high prison sentence that threatens the activist if she does not pay a fine, indicates the unwillingness of the authorities to face the past and the existence of a reckoning with all those who dare to publicly point out the crimes of the 90s.

Several attacks on freedom of assembly were recorded during the March 8 protest in Belgrade. The attacks were motivated by homophobia and an increasingly pronounced anti-gender discourse, which is spread by various political and religious actors in our country.

You can find more details about these cases in the full report below.