"Move away from the dumpster," shouts the masked youth to the demonstrators before knocking it down and setting it on fire. The heavy summer air mingles with the smell of smoke and tear gas wafting through the wind. Hundreds of people obediently move aside, and one group runs to help. The planters are also falling.
It's Friday, August 15th., and just a few minutes earlier a stampede of people rushed from Nemanja Street, through Slavija and all the way to Karađorđev Park, chased coordinated action of the Gendarmerie and progressive thugs armed with pyrotechnics and bars. Perhaps the cordon of the Gendarmerie in full equipment to break up the demonstration would not have been enough to disperse the mass of angry people if those masked men in black shirts had not been firing cannons all the time.
Even the protesters are no longer in debt. Pyrotechnics flew from both sides. Several young men later took photos with the Shiites of the Gendarmerie that they confiscated.
Photo: TimeBurning containers in Nemanjina
After a short break, the chase with the police through the narrow streets of Vračara begins. Demonstrators try to use alternative routes to reach the Faculty of Law, where another group is stationed, but at one point the news arrives: the blockade near Pravno has been breached. The route changes and the column of people moves towards the Vukovar monument.
"Aco, Shiptar!" echoes through the sleeping Vračar. Containers are knocked down at every intersection, in an attempt to slow down the police cordons. A group of young men moves in front of the column and checks whether the nearby streets are empty.
Still, there's the ever-present feeling that people with clubs might pop out of some dark corner and start thrashing anyone they can. And if the police were there somewhere, they know that they would not come to their aid. On the contrary, they can expect to be caught like rabbits and beaten to death.
In its chaos, the convoy shyly approaches a few cars that want to pass. Masked youths separate the column and let vehicles pass, drivers honking their horns in support. As soon as the last car moves away, containers are pulled out onto the street and the convoy continues, while cannon shots echo in the distance.
Photo: TimeBehind the police cordon
Anger flare-up
For months, students have been calling for non-violent protests and passive resistance to regime repression. In the last month and a half, however, something has changed: hospitals - often prisons - are filled with beaten students and citizens, who are accused of serious crimes. The president of the country openly invites his supporters to a street fight against dissidents, and the progressives at the bar are listening as a matter of official duty, so they use pyrotechnic devices and bottles full of frozen water to shoot the protesters who came to their doorstep across the police cordon. To their aid, assembled groups ready to fight arrive from somewhere.
All of these are the reasons for igniting anger that has been simmering since November 1 last year. The main cause for the anger, however, in recent days can be found in the behavior of the police.
Since the beginning of the protests, many have believed that at some point the police officers will be ashamed of what they are doing, throw down their shields and "come to the side of the people". Naive expectations, it turns out.
Photo: Djordje DjokovicPolice violence in Valjevo
Instead, the opposite is happening: the police have been torn from the legal framework, the organs of public order and peace have been turned into the private assurance of the Serbian Progressive Party. Instead of preventing violence, the police work in coordination with the batterers. A video of a policeman cordially consulting with a man wearing a phantom was heard on social networks, members of special police units and those in plainclothes silently watch the beatings of citizens, students, and even minors and too easily, often without reason, participate in them.
Meanwhile, Police Minister Ivica Dacic stammers into a pre-prepared recitation of how protesters are brutally tearing at armored police officers, arresting protesters as if on tape, and assuring viewers of Pink and Informer that the police are not overstepping their authority.
TV Informer then shares footage of the arrested protesters kneeling, facing the wall, while members of the Police Intervention Unit stand behind them, and Dragan J. Vučićević gloats that "they will all pass that way".
Photo: Printscreen / TV InformerThe joy of the editorial staff of TV Informer over the arrested demonstrators
"Inserted Elements"
In such a situation, the biblical slogan "if someone slaps you, turn the other cheek" can hardly apply. Since the police were placed under the protection of Aleksandar Vučić's regime and not the state, those protesting for the rule of law suddenly became legitimate targets.
The events in Vrbas and Bačka Palanka a few days ago completely dispelled the myth of the police "just doing their job". Rampage of thugs in Valjevo, smashing people and bars in broad daylight in front of numerous police officers, is a story in itself.
When they finally realized that no one would come to them protect against progressive phalanxes, students and citizens protesting against the regime turned to the only thing they had left: themselves.
That's why it's no longer strange to see protesters with bars running in the direction of thugs and cordons, pushing and burning containers towards them, returning thrown tear gas in the direction they came from, or breaking into the premises of the Serbian Progressive Party, where people with thick criminal records are lurking, who expect the president to pardon them if they break someone, who have no fear of legal consequences, because they are protected by the police and the progressive government.
Photo: TimeBurning containers across the city are already becoming a common sight
A few months ago, many would trumpet that it was about "inserted elements". There are probably still such people somewhere - if they dare to be surrounded by thousands of angry dissidents.
If there are any, however, they are now in the fat minority. This can be seen by anyone who has been on the streets of Belgrade, Novi Sad and other cities throughout Serbia in the past few days. There are no more children at protests, no pets, young men and women come masked with scarves - on the one hand, to hide their identity, and on the other to protect themselves from tear gas.
On Friday evening, the citizens of Novi Belgrade were waiting for Zemunci to head towards the city center, where a group of demonstrators had already gathered. A group from Zemun, equipped for a skirmish with progressive paramilitary units and policemen in equipment to break up demonstrations that protect them, rumbled through the streets of New Belgrade and reached Knez Miloš with such force that the progressive thugs gathered in a few seconds and locked themselves in the premises of their party. They preferred to let the gendarmes deal with them.
Photo: Tanjug/Marko DjokovicProtest "Tonight you're bursting at the seams"
Who will scatter whom?
"If I were to bring out the Cobras and scatter them all, it wouldn't take six or seven seconds," said the president of all citizens in "Čirilica" about the students last December.
Even then, this statement was greeted with ridicule, and eight months later, it is unthinkable that Vučić would say this or a similar sentence again with such self-confidence. For months, the president of Serbia has been proclaiming victory over the "colored revolution" and "terrorists", he talks about the anger of the "other side" that he has "never seen in his life", threatens, arrests, labels, distributes pardons to the batterers.
It all finally paid off. The cause of the heated atmosphere in society is squatting on Andrić's venc. Vučić brought things to the point where peaceful students used batons, shields and helmets to defend themselves from the attacks of criminals protected by the police, to defend themselves from being dragged to the garage of the Government of Serbia, tied up, thrown on the floor, beaten, and their colleague, the commander JZO Marko Kricak slaps her and threatens to rape her in front of everyone.
Ivica Dačić should not be overlooked either, the man who decided to destroy the Serbian police and who brought the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) to the brink of survival by acting as the security chief of another party.
Finally, the law requires that any police officer who uses force in the field must immediately notify the authorities in writing, who will then consider whether excessive force was used.
We believe that the law will be consistently applied - one day.
