People's deputies Marinika Tepić (SSP), Miroslav Aleksić (NPS) and Radomir Lazović (ZLF) speak for "Vreme" when they first suspected that their every word was going to the secret services and that the regime was abusing that information. Although their privacy is threatened even when they are in their own home and when it comes to their health problems, they have remained silent for years. They say they were overcome by the fear of having their words twisted in public and of being stigmatized as paranoid.
One call from an unknown number, which you don't even have to answer, is enough. One e-mail or message with a strange link is enough, which, according to experts, you don't even need to click anymore, in order to get phone infected with malware like Pegasus or Predator, which completely take control and supervision over all the data in that phone. Notorious viruses turn cameras and microphones into spying tools for eavesdropping and observing anyone near a person with an infected device.
MARINIKA TEPIĆ (SSP)
"I was driving to Novi Sad. My family lives there. Cold and foggy evening, November 13. Bad weather for driving. I sat down in the restaurant of the gas station to drink coffee before continuing my journey and clear my head, so that I don't enter the house with heavy thoughts and put my little girl to sleep so upset," says MP Marinika Tepić from the Freedom and Justice Party. "I was thinking about the fall of the canopy at the Railway Station, the death of people..."
That's when she found out that someone was trying to reach her, her intimates, messages, plans... Namely, she received a message on her mobile phone, and immediately an email.
"The phone manufacturer - the iPhone company - sent me a notification that an attack on my phone is in progress. Someone was trying to get all the data by injecting me with the notorious Pegasus spyware”. In the warning, they were explicit that the camera and microphone are also under attack, which someone is trying to turn into eavesdropping devices. They also warned me that they don't know if malicious malware has already penetrated my phone and that I need to protect myself urgently", says Tepić and continues. "I knew what was waiting for me. Restoring the phone to factory settings. This means that I am left without most of the messages, and even some photos, memories that I did not manage to transfer to a separate email or laptop. I was sick of anger, it wasn't the first time."
Tepic says that it was the third attack on her phone in the last ten months alone, since she rebelled against election theft in December 2023 with a hunger strike. She also noticed that, when she opened some messages, the screen started to flash by itself, as if she was taking screenshots. It all started much earlier.
"It was the fall of 2021. Also some cold evening. We were getting ready for bed. I took my phone to set the alarm and turned pale. I saw the warning messages for the first time. I had no idea what that meant. But it wasn't good. The housemates noticed my facial expression, I started to sweat. I said briefly: 'I can't sleep. I'm going to the living room.' They were worried. Although they understand my work as a politician, they did not want to leave me alone. We sat together in the corner and a sleepless night began."
Marinika remembers how she immediately contacted a team of young experts from the party and asked them what the iPhone warning meant. They connected to her phone and told her:
"Break and throw the phone away. You have uninvited guests on your phone. Double screen, now we see that you have a double image that you can't see, so all your messages, everything you scroll through on your phone, news you read, preparations for conferences... Even those who injected you with an electronic virus can see all of that."
Tepić says that she then changed her phone, but she still did not understand what happened, who did it to her and why. She suspected the BIA and state structures, but, as she states, she was uncomfortable talking about it in public, lest it be thought that she was paranoid, that she was drawing attention.
"In 2021, little was known about it in Serbia. I was confused. I lacked evidence, to collect it in black and white and to make it public. And then BIRN's articles on that topic began to appear. Investigative journalists found the BIA buying surveillance software with malware just like Predator and Pegasus. One of the characteristics of countries with dictatorial regimes has become that they use such malicious viruses to hack into the phones of political dissidents.”
Tepić also states that she herself has started to investigate whether she is on wiretapping and monitoring measures. As she says, sources from the court and the prosecutor's office have confirmed to her that she has been officially put under such measures several times, like terrorists and members of organized criminal groups.
"I found out that the order for my wiretapping was issued by judges in Pancevo, Novi Sad, and even in Sremska Mitrovica. However, the sources were afraid to give me the documentation that confirms it. According to the law, those eavesdropping could last for six months at most and if they did not find any criminal offense during that time, also according to the law, they should have informed me that I was under surveillance. However, no one ever informed me about it, but the illegal attempts to monitor my phone obviously continued, as soon as the iPhone has the need to inform me about it", concludes Tepić.
The MP of the Freedom and Justice Party says that she now believes that the stories of the employees of the House of the National Assembly, who repeatedly warned them in whispers that all the offices for meetings in the Parliament, as well as the opposition party rooms, are true.
"We have to meet and talk. We put the phones away, but the signal is weak. What do you need? That more than 80 opposition MPs go out to the meadow, Avala, Košutnjak, to walk and arrange activities on the go while those from the BIA are hanging around the trees? What is the solution? Here, I will buy a new phone in installments again, but while I pay it off, how many new alerts will the iPhone send me? We are aware that we are being eavesdropped - all of them. But we don't give them fear. We will survive, but this regime will be forever and historically scarred by how dishonorable they were and what they used for everything". MP Marinika Tepić is determined.
MIROSLAV ALEKSIĆ (NPS website)
"It started back in 2020. It was the beginning of the corona. I was also a deputy then, but of the People's Party. As soon as people started talking about the corona virus in Serbia, there were no treatment guidelines yet, and one morning my wife and I woke up with a fever. We immediately suspected, 'it must be corona'. We were afraid of infecting someone, so I immediately called my own brother to inform him and ask him to bring food to the door of the apartment. I called my brother around 9.45:10.22 a.m., and already at 40:XNUMX a.m., that is, not even XNUMX minutes later, I received a message from a journalist, and the content of that message was actually a rehearsed conversation between my brother and me:
'Miroslav Aleksić is voluntarily in home quarantine. He has a fever, is broken, has a headache and a slight sore throat. He assumes that he got the corona from Vuk Jeremic, who upon his arrival from abroad infected the entire NS leadership. He informed his brother Ivan Aleksić about the above by phone. They agree that in the coming period, Ivan will supply him with necessities, which he will bring to the door of Aleksić's apartment in Trstenik. His symptoms appeared three days after contact with the Wolf.'
The current leader of the National Movement of Serbia says that it was then that he realized for the first time that he was being eavesdropped, in real time, and that his intimate details were being passed on to the media. During those days, his phone rang non-stop, other journalists also called him, but he avoided answering.
Aleksić states that in the last two years there have been strange events with phone applications, through which conversations are supposedly safer because they take place over the Internet.
"Messages are delayed, my internet starts to drop unexpectedly, the connection drops, so I'm forced to call someone for an open connection."
While we were making arrangements for this interview for the weekly "Vreme", I sent several messages to MP Aleksić. They arrived on a confused schedule or were not delivered. I mentioned to him that maybe he has bad internet...
"If BIA got into my phone with some malware, I don't let them get into my head and cause paranoia. I will say what I want as a free man until freedom."
However, Aleksic's decision not to give in to doubt does not mean that the bizarre situations have ended.
"In mid-December, the party held a meeting of the Executive Committee. MP Uroš Đokić, vice-president of the NPS, was also present. At one point, his phone starts ringing - an android - it appears as if he is being called by a colleague who is sitting across from him and is not touching his phone, using the Signal application, which is considered more secure. They look at the phones, Đokić is still ringing while his party colleague is inactive and does not record any calls. Then Đokić's phone rings again, now it turns out that I am calling him, and I also did not touch the phone, nor do I have any outgoing calls to Uroš Đokić recorded."
Miroslav Aleksić says that the only solution to relieve people of fear is if everyone revolts: students, farmers, people in institutions, so that the services simply won't be able to listen in on everyone.
"Shame, this summer we had two terrorist attacks in Serbia, one in Belgrade, where a policeman was seriously wounded, and the other near Loznica, where one young policeman was killed and another wounded. You see, the BIA did not prevent those terrorist attacks, they had no idea that already known extremists were preparing attacks. They didn't listen to terrorists, but to the opposition, activists, civil society, journalists, students, farmers... In previous years, people who were subject to wiretapping and monitoring were killed in Serbia, as well as criminals, as well as lawyers like Dragoslav Miša Ognjanović, and their killers have still not been discovered. Here I tell you, he will answer for it. And I really want them to hear, these are not political threats, they are promises", concludes Aleksić.
THE STORY OF RADOMIR LAZOVIĆ (ZLF)
Lazović, the opposition MP and co-president of the Green-Left Front, says that he does not have written proof from the institutions, but that he knows that he is being eavesdropped. Details of his private conversations from this December ended up on obscure portals.
"My partner and I have been fighting to have children for years. We do a ton of medical tests. We heard that chlamydia is the most common sexually transmitted disease, but that it doesn't often show symptoms, so we talked about maybe including that test in the list of tests. Shortly after the conversation, an article with the title "Radomir Lazović - promoter of colored revolutions or distributor of chlamydia" appeared on the pro-Russian portal "Vaseljenska". The feeling was awful, such a shameless invasion of privacy. Fortunately, we are healthy - we don't have chlamydia, so this is how we add to the BIA archive," said the ZLF deputy ironically.
Lazović is convinced that he and his colleagues have been eavesdropped since the demolition in Savamala, when they started the protests. He notes that it is difficult to agree on frequent actions without communication by phone and that they recently became convinced that even when the circle of information is reduced to a minimum, the plan still "leaks".
"Colleague Dobrica Veselinović and I agreed to put symbols of the red fist on the Government building. We invited about thirty activists who did not know what we were gathering for to come with us. However, when we got to Nemanja Street, we were greeted by a huge cordon of police leaning against the walls in front of the Government. It was clear that they were listening either to Dobrica or to me, and it would be better to listen to both of them. We will continue the fight, we will try even more carefully, but we will not allow them to hold us back and intimidate us. And we will fight and live our lives", Lazović is determined.
Opposition MPs are not the only ones exposed to secret surveillance by the security services. This theft of details from other people's private and business lives has so far not met with institutional reactions or sanctions, and the top of the government boasts that "we know what the opposition is doing." It is uncertain whether the extent of the wiretapping of all those designated as a danger or enemy of the regime will ever be known. It is certain, however, that those who deal with other people's lives without an honorable goal, actually prevent themselves from living their own. After all, they will only be left with other people's memories.
Installing malware like Pegasus and Predator is very fast and takes only a few minutes if it is physically entered into the phone, while online installation only requires the user to receive a link sent to them in the form of some fake news or advertisement. Only Predator and Pegasus, as currently known to the public, have the ability to be installed online. Uninstalling the software is also possible remotely and takes very little time, and the owner of the phone does not notice anything unusual. A recent investigation by BIRN and a forensic analysis by Amnesty International revealed that the BIA, using Israeli Cellebrite technology, unlocked the phones of activists it called or brought in for interviews, and then installed the domestic spying program NoviSpy on those devices. Given that opposition politicians who are BIA MPs are not detained because they have immunity, they have clearly been the target of remote attacks by electronic surveillance viruses such as Pegasus and Predator.
Less than two days of blockade - that's how long it took to see how weak and powerless the public media service is, both from the outside and from the inside. At the moment of writing this text, it is the eighth day of the blockade, and the sixth that RTS is not broadcasting its program. They also seem to be facing a strike inside the house. And the essence of blocking RTS is not in what it publishes, but in what it keeps silent
In the months after the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, the flames of rebellion spread throughout Serbia. The first protests started in Novi Sad right after the tragedy. The authorities responded with arrests, police cordons and intimidation, but instead of calming down the protesters, new protests followed.
The rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, has been the target of top state officials and regime tabloids for months, who label him as an insidious instigator of student protests, an opportunist, "the face of evil" and "the leader of the criminal octopus." How and why a rector became "state enemy number one"
"I'm standing in the cordon, and my daughter is shouting at me 'aw, aw, killers'. What should I do? If they ordered me - I would throw down my baton and bulletproof vest and stand on the side of my child," a police officer from the south of Serbia, who works as needed in the Belgrade Police Brigade, told "Vreme"
The recent formation of the Đura Macuta government is part of the regime's revenge and cynicism. This can be seen most in the "black troika" of new ministers appointed to deal with the parts of society that are the leaders and symbols of the big rebellion that lasted for several months, the cause of which was the fall of the canopy in Novi Sad, which claimed 16 human lives. Education, universities, unsolicited media and parts of the judiciary that refuse to listen to orders, either publicly, with announcements, or hiding behind legal procedures, should be dismantled. Those who will have no problem doing everything they are told, even reinforcing the orders with their own inventions, are chosen for this.
Ministers often call Vučić a class teacher. There is no joy or critical reflection in his classroom. Everyone has to bow their heads over the benches, hum and listen. What this is about, the reader sees on television every day
RTS is blocked, universities do not work, and threats, insults and calls to the prosecutor's office and the police to arrest blockers, rioters and terrorists are pouring out from the top of the government. The Serbian state has turned into a farce
Anyone who condemns the regime's targeting of people from the media, the non-governmental sector, the opposition and universities, must not agree to this targeting of RTS editors and journalists either.
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