Ivanjica: Police Silent on ID Check of Opposition Councilors

Ivan Jovicevic, head of the Novo lice Srbije (NLS) council group in the Ivanjica Municipal Assembly, said on August 24 that police identity checked four opposition councilors, himself included, along with three colleagues, at the closing of the “Nusicijada” festival, in what he described as an attempt to keep them from reaching the stage. According to him, the stop happened on the town’s main street, right as the group joined a crowd of citizens walking toward the site of the closing ceremony.

Jovicevic, who is also deputy president of the Novo lice Srbije party, told the Beta news agency that plainclothes police inspectors stopped them in the middle of the street. He said the identity check lasted for the entire speech given by Ivanjica Municipality President Aleksandar Mitrovic, and that police did not limit themselves to the councilors: seven citizens who were with the group were checked as well.

“When we asked why they were checking our IDs and whether we were being deprived of our liberty, they said it was a routine check,” Jovicevic said.

The NLS councilor also raised the question of who ordered the police action against festival participants.

“I’m asking whether it has become normal in Ivanjica for people to be identity checked while attending a traditional festival, who ordered the police to check us, and whether anyone gave an order to hold us,” Jovicevic said.

Third incident in three days of celebrations

This year’s “Nusicijada” ran from August 21 to 23 under the slogan “Under Nusic’s Hat,” with a program of theater, music and literary events in the town park, the main square and the House of Culture. According to the municipality, which organizes the festival, around 20,000 people attended over the first two days.

The identity checks at the closing were not the only incident tied to this year’s edition. The opening was marked by a protest by several dozen civic activists wearing T-shirts reading “Students are winning,” who heckled the municipal president’s speech, as we reported earlier in Selakovic Drops Speech at Nusicijada After Being Booed. Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic, who took part in a parade of residents dressed in late nineteenth century town costumes, abandoned his planned address that day and did not appear on stage.

Two days later, attention shifted from a vocal protest at the opening to police conduct at the closing, this time directed at people who formally hold local office, only from opposition ranks. Jovicevic sits in the municipal assembly as a representative of one of the opposition lists, which in his view turns the incident into a question about how the authorities in Ivanjica treat elected representatives of the citizens, not just festival participants.

Was the ID check a routine procedure?

The answer Jovicevic says the councilors were given on the spot, that it was a routine check, does not explain why the check lasted exactly as long as the municipal president’s speech, or why it targeted precisely the group walking toward the stage at the moment he was speaking. That is the basis for the question Jovicevic put publicly: who ordered the check, and whether there was an instruction to hold the group until the speech ended.

The Interior Ministry (MUP) and the Ivanjica Municipality have not commented on Jovicevic’s claims so far. Without an official confirmation or denial, it remains unclear whether this was standard procedure or action directed at a specific group of councilors, a question that, given the status of those who were checked, the institutions should answer.