Kragujevac Banner Dispute: Three Detained After Midnight

The ninth day of the banner dispute on Queen Marija Boulevard in Kragujevac was rockier than the previous eight. After midnight between Saturday and Sunday, police detained two members of the citizens’ assemblies and one student, and Veljko Radovic, deputy director of the Center for Education, knocked a phone out of the hand of an activist who was filming the intervention. A few hours earlier, on Saturday evening, a truck knocked down a banner belonging to the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) on the same boulevard.

How the Dispute Began

It all started on Friday, August 14, when students in blockade and members of the citizens’ assemblies hung a banner reading “Students Are Winning” on the pedestrian overpass on Queen Marija Boulevard. Soon after, several hundred meters away, SNS supporters put up their own banner on the sidewalk, “Serbia Is Winning.” Since then, both sides have kept a 24-hour watch, taking turns in shifts without leaving the spot.

According to reporting by the N1 news team, the watch kept by supporters of the ruling party was joined on August 17 by member of parliament Miroslav Petrasinovic and several directors of state owned companies. They said they were there “because they have to,” while the students say they are on the spot because they want to be.

A Night of Detentions

The situation escalated last night, around half past midnight, when masked young men arrived on the boulevard to tighten the cables on a banner reading “United Serbia,” which had loosened and started to obstruct traffic. According to what is known so far, they were accompanied by SNS council member Slavica Radenkovic and Veljko Radovic, deputy director of the Center for Education.

Residents gathered at the scene demanded that the masked men show a work order for the intervention on the banner. Detentions followed: police held two members of the citizens’ assemblies and one student. In the commotion, Radovic knocked a phone out of the hand of Marija Petrovic, a member of the assemblies, as she was filming the event on camera. He was not detained but was called in for questioning, and Petrovic said she would report the incident to police.

Truck Knocks Down SNS Banner

The ninth day of the dispute was marked by a second, separate incident. On Saturday evening, August 22, a truck caught and knocked down an SNS banner on Queen Marija Boulevard, one that had been strung on a cable between two poles. The cable was left hanging over the road, and activists keeping watch at the scene called the emergency number 192. They were told to contact the power utility, Elektrodistribucija, since work on the cable was not a police matter.

Earlier: A Minor Detained

This was not the first police intervention since the banner dispute began. On August 19, police detained a 17-year-old who had taken down and thrown away two flags bearing the SNS name from the party’s stand on the same boulevard. A misdemeanor complaint was filed against the minor, while the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office found no elements of a criminal offense in his conduct.

Srpske vesti had already reported on the standoff at the same location, in a story about the eighth day of the banner dispute on the overpass, when the round the clock watch kept by both sides was already taking the shape of a lasting standstill, with no sign that either side would give way.

Nine days after the first banner went up, the dispute over two pieces of cloth in Kragujevac has produced three detentions, one misdemeanor complaint, and at least one case still to reach the police. Neither side of the boulevard has, for now, given any indication that the banners will come down, leaving it open whether the tenth day will bring calm or another intervention.