Page 36 - bne_August 2020_20200810

36 I Southeast Europe bne August 2020
Serbia’s hijacked protests
Ivana Jovanovic
Spontaneous protests against Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s announcement of a new lockdown to prevent the growing number of coronavirus (COVID-19) patients overwhelming hospitals appear to have been hijacked by far-right groups and foreign intelligence services.
The protests started on July 7 as a revolt against the government’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and decision to hold elections during the pandemic. They swiftly turned into attacks on the police and institutional buildings and destruction of public property, mainly because of the involvement of far-right groups, which in turn caused a police reaction and clashes – only to calm down on July 9, then erupt into violence again on July 10.
The protests continued even though Vucic said that he had given up on imposing a new curfew, the purpose of which was to rein in the heavy increase in new coronavirus infections.
This leaves Serbians facing two worrying questions. First, the uncertain future
of the protests and how they will affect political stability and the international position of the country. Second, how the spread of the virus will be controlled at such events. Police used a lot of teargas, which made everybody at the protests cough in close proximity to each other, protesters chanted loudly close to each other, they approached police officers
to curse and hit them with stones, glass or whatever they could find – even digging out pieces of asphalt for this purpose. Both of these will affect the economy and the lives of ordinary citizens.
Fighting on the streets
After Vucic announced his decision on July 7, that evening, thousands of people went to downtown Belgrade to protest against the new weekend curfew for July 10-13.
www.bne.eu
The rally started as a peaceful gathering with participants wearing face masks and maintaining social distance. The number of citizens protesting peacefully was growing when extremists joined and started vandalising the city. A group led by far-right politicians broke into the building of the national parliament. As the police weren’t really prepared for a massive protest and as the protest wasn’t an organised gathering, the situation got out of control quickly. Police used force – beat the demonstrators and teargassed them as they tried to keep them out of the parliament. This caused a stampede.
Glass bottles and torches flew through the air as some protesters approached the police cordon and attacked them with whatever they had in their hands, according to N1.
The fight between police and protesters lasted for several hours —whenever the police forced the protesters back with teargas or by rushing into the crowds, the crowd returned to push back. By the end it was not clear what their goal was.
After almost eight hours of clashes, Belgrade’s streets were finally empty but demolished. According to police director Vladimir Rebic, five police cars were burnt on July 7, 43 policemen and 17
protesters injured as well as three police horses, daily Danas reported.
Larger numbers of people came out onto the streets of major cities in the country, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac and Nis, on July 8. The July 8 action also started as a peaceful rally, though participants were chanting against the president, insulting the police, singing about Kosovo, glorifying convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic and loudly voicing their opposition to being vaccinated against the virus.
The opposition and its leaders presented their demands to the government related to changing doctors in the coronavirus crisis group as well as for responsibility to be taken by police officers for brutality against citizens on July 7. They also demanded that public broadcaster RTS report on the protests neutrally, N1 reported.
Just like the previous day, the gathering later turned violent and the mood became increasingly politicised. The gathering started at 6pm and ended hours after midnight. That day 10 cops were injured and one had both legs broken, Minister of Interior Affairs Nebojsa Stefanovic said, RTS reported. He didn’t comment on the number of injured protesters.