Student of the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Relja Stanojević, spent 17 days in the Klisa prison. The day after he was released, he was a guest on the morning program of television N1. The boy was visibly shaken, it was difficult for him to speak. Mia Bjelogrlić thoughtfully interrupted the conversation before she fell apart in front of the camera.
Relja had no place in prison, he is not a criminal, but an artist, and the criminal offense he was charged with – assaulting an official in the performance of his official duty – is pure nonsense. From his point of view, he was only defending a girl who was attacked by some hoodlums at the protest due to the fatal accident in Novi Sad on November 5.
There were hundreds of witnesses to confirm this, and it was recorded how two large men, one of whom was mumbling, were dragging Relja somewhere. Only after Goran Ješić, defending him, pushed away the one who put the hood on his face so that no one would recognize him, did they identify themselves as police officers.
Prosecutor and judge
However, the Novi Sad prosecutor proposed that Relja be imprisoned for up to 30 days, and the judge accepted it.
Why? Was it supposed to be some kind of educational measure? That in the future he would not participate in protests against Vučić and Vučević? To serve as an example to others? To dissuade the citizens from defending themselves the next time they are attacked by regime hoodlums?
On what basis did the prosecutor and the judge conclude that the boy should be detained? That they didn't recognize him as a dangerous criminal? That those corpulent two weren't scared of him?
Or did they simply not dare to release him immediately? So that someone wouldn't hold a grudge against them?
The boomerang effect of intimidation
It's all so transparent that it's pathetic, and it's sad where human and professional integrity has gone. And that prosecutor and the judge and the cops know very well that that guy didn't belong in jail for a single day.
And they kept him there in unsanitary conditions, to be eaten by bedbugs, in the uncertainty of what they could do to him, with the knowledge that in this kind of judiciary they can do whatever they want to him, lock him behind bars for several years if they so desire. . Or if it is judged that it might encourage other young people to rebel.
It's psychological torture.
This regime is trying to break the children of Serbia, to make people out of them who will be silent and suffer injustice and worship the Leader. The fact that Relja decided to speak out the day after he was released from prison is brave.
They harmed him, but they failed to intimidate him. He and others like him managed to intimidate the leaders of the progressive government.
These people are not afraid of anything. The degree of repression depends only on the assessment of whether the beatings and arrests would drive the protesters into a mouse hole, or if it would cause an even bigger revolt.
Currently, the valves that control the pressure are unscrewed. Six participants of the protest in Novi Sad are still in custody.