Freedom and Justice Party: Over 350 Detained at Protests
First yearly tally: more than 350 people detained at protests since August 2025, with the claim that none belonged to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party.
The Freedom and Justice Party announced on August 14 that more than 350 citizens had been detained at protests across Serbia over the past year, and that not one of those detained belonged to the Serbian Progressive Party. The statement was released on the day the party marks as the anniversary of what it calls the start of mass use of force against people taking part in gatherings.
The figure itself is new. Until now, detention numbers had surfaced individually, tied to specific rallies, cities and dates. This is the first time a party has added up the entire period since August 2025 into a single number, shifting the debate from any one protest to a full year’s balance sheet.
Where the figure of 350 comes from
The tally is the party’s own, not the police’s. It comes from a Freedom and Justice Party statement that includes no breakdown by city or date, and no information on how many detentions ended in misdemeanor or criminal charges. In the same text, the party separates two groups: several dozen citizens it says were beaten, particularly in Valjevo and Belgrade, and several dozen more who were arrested.
What that total is meant to show comes down to one sentence:
Not a single regime hooligan has been brought to justice, even though it was precisely they who started the violence against citizens in multiple cases
The party’s argument does not rest on the number itself but on who is counted within it. With not a single person from the ruling party among those detained, the figure of more than 350 is, for Freedom and Justice, not a measure of how police handle gatherings, but evidence that the same standard is not applied to both sides.
The statement does not stop at the balance sheet. The party ties it to the election cycle, announcing that the government will, as it put it, be “politically retired” on election night. The anniversary, in other words, doubles as a campaign document, which does not change the underlying figure but explains why it was released now.
The lawmaker’s case that has stood for a year
As its central example, the party points to the attack on its lawmaker Pedja Mitrovic, who was struck on the head with a metal bar in Belgrade’s Savski Venac municipality a year ago. The statement says the attack took place within view of security cameras belonging to state institutions and to the premises of the local branch of the Serbian Progressive Party. A year later, the party says, no attacker has been identified or detained.
The case has moved nowhere through the judiciary. The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade forwarded the file to the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office, reasoning that the elements of a crime under its own jurisdiction had not been met, and classified the incident as a minor bodily injury under Article 122, paragraph 2, of the Criminal Code. The Freedom and Justice Party believes other classifications are possible, including an attack on a member of parliament under Article 322 or violent conduct at a public gathering under Article 344a.
The difference between those classifications is not a technicality. It determines which prosecutor’s office handles the case, as already became clear the moment the Higher Prosecutor’s Office passed the file down to the Basic one.
How institutions count the same days
The Interior Ministry said a day earlier, referring to the rally in Valjevo, that 11 people had been brought in for questioning and that weapons and face-concealing equipment had been found on them. That is a second reading of the same sequence of events: police explain detentions by what was found on people, while the opposition counts them as pressure on gatherings.
A year after the events in Valjevo, no indictment has been filed, as we have previously reported. That gap, between the number of people detained on one side and the number of proceedings opened against attackers on the other, is exactly what the Freedom and Justice Party places at the center of its statement.
The case of the attack on Mitrovic now sits with the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office, and its decision will determine whether, after a year, the case finally receives a different classification. Until then, the figure of more than 350 detained remains one party’s number, drawn from its own count and without official confirmation.
