The popular uprising after the tragedy at the railway station in Novi Sad has awakened the right side of the regime, which is beginning to follow more and more consistently the saying attributed to Idi Amin, the famous African dictator: Freedom of speech is guaranteed, but no one guarantees what will happen to you after that speech
Everyone - those who have TV N1, but also those who watch TV Informer, which is on all evening, during the duration protests in Novi Sad last week, "stealing the signal" and interpreting to the viewers what they see with their own eyes - we watched live on the broadcast: two men in gray jackets with hoods were taking away a young man; TV N1 reporter and cameraman run after them, the young man says that they attacked his girlfriend; then, someone jumps on one of those in gray jackets, the grip loosens, the one they were leading breaks away, and these two throw themselves at the guy who violently intervened; we see - the one who wanted to free the young man is Goran Jesic, long-term president of the municipality of Indjija and provincial minister for one term.
Those in gray jackets declare themselves to be police officers, Ješić asks them to show identification, one of them pulls out a badge hidden under his jacket and waves it to show us that he is a police officer. They "throw" Ješić onto a nearby fence, put handcuffs on him, take him to a car parked next to it and take him in an unknown direction.
Everything is recorded, everything can be seen and heard.
Later we learn that Ješić was taken into custody, charged with assault on an official, and the public wonders how this is possible because he could not know in any way whether they were really police officers or some kind of thugs. There were plenty of them that evening in Novi Sad, and we had seen them before at numerous events. On the second day after he was detained, Ješić was released by the decision of the first instance court.
His speech at the time was emotional but clear: that evening the police arrested those who rose up because of 14 people were killed in Novi Sad on November 1, and during that time she did not arrest any person who could be responsible for that crime.
Thus, a complete inversion occurred: instead of arresting those responsible for the deaths of people, those who are alleged to have participated in violent protests were arrested. Ješić ends the "performance" with a fat swear word that soon becomes superviral, and a kind of emblem of the protest of the citizens of Novi Sad - "Your pussy mother, yes your pussy mother!"
Goran Ješić's "cry", which is widely shared and repeated, brought an extension of detention. Although there is no evidence for this now, the fact that he said what he said, that "everyone uses" that phrase, that it happened via social networks, and the government, which is sensitive to Internet events, seems to have been particularly annoyed by this and quickly retaliation followed. As with Idi Amin - Ješić could freely say what he wanted, but for that he goes to prison. A day and a half after his release, the Court of Appeal changed the decision and accepted the appeal of the prosecutor in Novi Sad, so Ješić packed up and went to detention in the detention unit in the Novi Sad suburb of Klisa.
IDIAMINAZATION OF SERBIA
In addition to Ješić, as he himself said, the children, that is, the activists she arrested, are still in prison. Dačićeva police under administration Aleksandar Vučić, so we have a unique judicial situation: 14 dead at the Railway Station - no one detained, no one detained and no one suspected, in contrast to the protest in Novi Sad and a dozen detained for "violent behavior" and disruption of public order and peace.
"Inversely perverse", as Vučić himself describes various situations in Serbia and the world, but he shows the key in the best way paradox of his regime - only those who oppose him suffer, while crime and corruption are "legalized". And this is a situation that is not only the assessment of those who dare to speak on two TV stations or on a dozen other media outlets in Serbia - this is the situation that is described in the Report on Serbia's Progress towards the EU, this is the situation that is described in the annual reports numerous international organizations.
The "Idiaminization of Serbia" seems to be a strategic behavior of Vučić and his government and for now, neither those who work in the judiciary and the police, nor the public as such are managing to find a way to stop that process and return Serbia to the path of the rule of law.
FAITHFUL SERVANT DAČIĆ
Vučić, as in previous years, had a lot of things "fixed" in the most critical moments: this time, from the first moment, he left everything to Dacić, the Minister of the Interior, the leader of the Socialists, who had just before come under attack from the progressives and the tabloids because Branko Ružić, a high-ranking SPS official, spoke on TV N1. Dacic was determined to do everything to satisfy Vučić: when the tragedy happened, he was the first in Novi Sad and looked like the only adult next to Miloš Vučević, Milan Đukić and Goran Vesić. Then, after extracting the victims, he removed the evidence from the scene by clearing the entire plateau in front of the Railway Station, taking "weapons and bullets" - concrete and iron - in an unknown direction, leaving the public wondering if forensics had done everything necessary before that. After that, Dacic organized the "defense of Novi Sad" from the people of Novi Sad and others who came from the side, placing the police in corners, in buildings, hiding them from the sight of those who were at the protest. Dacic - because he is the minister and is in charge, especially in the absence of the police director - built a horseshoe into which the protesters entered, at one point he closed it, and those who remained in it are now in the detention unit on Klisa. If that is not enough to prove Vucic's loyalty, then it is really hard to imagine what more Dacic can do.
WHAT THE PUBLIC DOESN'T KNOW
In parallel, the prosecution in Novi Sad dealt with activists, Goran Ješić and By Miš Bačulović, a councilor in the City Assembly of Novi Sad from the Heroji Citizens Group, and not those who, with their work and signatures, led to the fall of the canopy that killed 14 people in Novi Sad. They last spoke on November 6 about the circumstances of the arrest after the protest, and the day before about the circumstances of the Novi Sad tragedy when they announced that seven prosecutors and assistants were working on the case, that more than 50 people had been questioned - in four days. That's all for now. The public does not know who is leading the investigation, nor what is the focus of that investigation. The public does not know who these prosecutors are, nor does anyone mention them by name, because it could be assumed that they know who these people are in Novi Sad. Two weeks after the greatest civilian and peacetime suffering in the history of Novi Sad, nothing is known except what the lawyers of the Serbian Progressive Party, Miloš Vučević and Aleksandar Vučić, said publicly - it's a lot of material, it's thousands of pages, they were not in the shoes of those who from they should draw up an indictment or dismiss all suspicion and inform us that no one is responsible and that everything is the result of an unfortunate set of circumstances.
"A PUZZLE" DEPENDENT PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE
For those who know how to read and are not guided by the "inversely perverse" rule, things are obvious: in Serbia, there is a Rulebook for building constructions, which describes what must be done in the rehabilitation and construction of any construction, when and what is checked, who does it and who reports to. It seems simple to determine whether everyone did their job, without even getting into whether the price of the works was inflated or not, that is, without investigating corruption. There is a person ordering the work, there is an executor, there is supervision and there are procedures - it is hard to believe that the seven people in the prosecution office in Novi Sad are not able to decipher this "riddle" in 14 days. Because if so, then, probably, none of them should stay even one day at the job of public prosecutor because they are not capable and trained for that job.
Hardly anyone can believe, taught by the twelve-year rule of Vučić, that all this is carried out without his knowledge, not directly but probably through the influential minister Maja Popović, who played an intermediary role between Vučić and the "judicial authorities" in several less significant cases.
And why would Vučić be personally interested in this case apart from what he himself says - that he wants criminal and political responsibility?
CHAIN OF IRRESPONSIBILITY
Perhaps because it is difficult to determine that in this kind of Serbia - where a month ago he and his wife opened the unfinished railway on the Novi Sad - Subotica line, and which he intends to open on November 24 - and in such an environment, he did not decide to opened for the first time in 2022 in the presidential campaign, and then again this summer, to announce a high-speed train to Subotica. So, let's not go into whether he decided which Chinese company takes the job, who are the subcontractors, who does the supervision, and that he had nothing to do with the implementation of the project, the opening could hardly have been done without him. So if he was the one - the ultimate person who said OPEN - is he also the person whom the prosecutor should investigate and establish responsibility for the death of 14 people in Novi Sad?
The line of responsibility is obvious: Vučić, competent ministers Tomislav Momirović and Goran Vesić, directors of Infrastructure Nebojša Šurlan and Jelena Tanasković, the Chinese company, and the consortium responsible for conducting supervision - which is a key element in the process of controlling the work carried out on a construction project.
However, apart from the resignation of Goran Vesić, who broke down due to the accident and was on the verge of going down in history the following year as the minister "under whom" the most kilometers of highways and expressways were opened, nothing happened. All the above-mentioned disappeared from the public, and their leader, Vučić, called at the session of GO SNS, on Friday, November 8, to work even harder, not to allow anyone to attack SNS and not to submit resignations - he literally followed the rule of "inversely perverse" addressing and acting in his performance.
He is probably bitter and angry with fate that he has to deal with that case in the days when Donald Trump won the elections in the USA - which Vucic welcomed with great joy, but also with trepidation because he was investing in both Trump and the Democrats. Nevertheless, he continued with his campaign of provoking the public: he went on the weekend to the cemetery in Kovilj, near Novi Sad, to show the public how he cares, how he knows how to show compassion to the families of the victims, but, in fact, to set a target and a hook for all those who they can't stand it. And he succeeded quite a bit because his gesture and post became more viral than Goran Ješić's swearing, which was the goal of going to the cemetery, taking pictures and paying homage to the Internet. When he "cancelled" social networks, he packed up and left for Azerbaijan without worrying much about the announced opposition protest for Monday, November 11.
SHATTERED EARTH
And that evening or afternoon, on the worst day of the year in Belgrade - in the sleet, rain and cold, several thousand people gathered in another attempt to send a message to the regime, which already knew in advance that the protest would be in Belgrade on November 11 . Indeed, originally announced for Wednesday, November 13, the protest was moved to 11/11 on Friday, November 8, right at the time of GO SNS. The protest did not bring anything new: again, a meeting was held that has no continuation and at which political leaders do not speak. Serbia remains fragmented into a hundred small actions, movements, parties, initiatives, proclamations, groups of citizens, which individually cannot defeat the regime even in the local community. And when it comes to those who are invited to speak at the protests, even if the goal of the opposition is to broaden the front, to be inclusive and to give the stage to various people from different fields, political action requires that those who are running for leadership of the country appear before the people and to tell them what the plan is and what the policy is, and why they called the people to the streets.
Until that happens, if it ever happens, the people of Serbia have to rely on themselves and with the help of several dozens of journalists and several media press those in the institutions to work according to the law and not according to the will of one person. Even if she liked to identify with Idi Amin and our similar "African friends".
Arrests out of the blue, banishment from the country, beatings... All this happened to us in the last week alone. The Serbian Progressive Party, born from the foam left behind by their spiritual father Vojislav Šešelj, is returning to its roots. I can't escape from myself
"The levers of power are not in their hands," said Bishop Grigorije. "But there is something in the Holy Scriptures that I like very much, and that is that the power of God is revealed in weakness. So, all worldly power is on one side. And on the other side, in the hands of these young men and women is the weakness of this world. But in their weakness, the power of God or God's justice appears. That is why they are at such a great advantage."
The regime and its media have been trumpeting the "civil war" for months, and the government is the only one that has a patent for peace and stability - of course, with the help of the propaganda machine and the use of force. "It is a propaganda tactic of SNS that says: 'violence is everywhere, terrorists surround us, but we are here to save you,'" explains communication professor Jelena Kleut for "Vreme".
Students and citizens who accompany them on these walking feats, were welcomed as the most native together with those who came the day before from other places. A dove of peace was also released on the stage next to the promenade along the river - this symbolic gesture of the two students is the most impressive gesture of understanding and respect between the Bosniak and Serbian peoples since the end of the wars in the former Yugoslavia
The three-day parliament for the promotion of Aleksandar Vučić and his Movement for the People and the State was realistically a fiasco. But it was first of all conceived as a media spectacle for regime television directed by court promoter Željko "DJ Žeks" Mitrović, with scenography and iconography adapted to the Serbian political market.
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.
The government of Đur Mazut is "counter-revolutionary", focused on retaliation and state and street violence against opponents of the regime
Depriving Dejan Ilić, an intellectual with an impeccable life and work biography, of his freedom, without the slightest meaningful reason, is just one of the brutal indicators that the regime has turned against its own citizens and is entering a phase of terror
Vučić and Šešelj: Where I stopped, you continue
The return of radical violence subscribeThe archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
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