European Serbia's Djilas Demands End to Arrests

Dragan Djilas, the top candidate on the European Serbia list, used the closing convention in Novi Sad to call on the authorities to stop the arrests ahead of the elections scheduled for October 25. In a statement published the same day, he asked Aleksandar Vucic, Ivica Dacic, the caretaker Interior Minister, and Ana Brnabic, the acting President of Serbia, to end the persecution of Student List supporters immediately. The rally took place on Wednesday evening. Earlier in the day, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade announced that five people had been arrested in Novi Sad on suspicion of planning disorder for election day.

The list brings together the Freedom and Justice Party (SSP), Serbia Center (SRCE) and the Solidarity Citizens’ Movement. Djilas, Zdravko Ponos, Marinika Tepic and Goran Jesic spoke from the stage. We wrote about Djilas’s wage promises this morning, in a preview of the rally.

What did Djilas demand in his statement?

In the statement, published at around 3 p.m., Djilas blamed the authorities for the violence and addressed his demand to the three officials:

“From him, as well as from his enforcers, Ivica Dacic, the minister of police, and Ana Brnabic, who formally runs Serbia, we demand that the arrests and persecution of people who support the Student List stop immediately.”

The sentence refers to Vucic. In the same statement Djilas added: “The only ones who have been doing that for 14 years are the members of the organized criminal group led by Aleksandar Vucic.” We found no response from those named to the statement by the time of publication.

What was said from the stage in Novi Sad?

Djilas said Novi Sad was the only right place for the closing rally because it is a “wounded city,” and reminded the crowd that any resident of Novi Sad could have been standing under the canopy at the railway station on November 1, 2024. He raised the arrests from the stage too, calling on those who are trying to intimidate people before the election to “really stop.”

He also announced that the Security Information Agency would be dissolved under a new government: “We will dissolve it in 24 hours, the professionals are coming back.” According to Danas’s report, he also mentioned dismantling RTS, cancelling the Expo exhibition, sanctions against Russia and abandoning lithium mining. His goal, he said, is for the Student List to be bigger than the SNS and for European Serbia to be bigger than the SPS, with a single condition for his support: that Serbia’s European path is not interrupted.

Marinika Tepic spoke about the practical price of isolation from the European Union:

“That is why Europe is our priority, without it we cannot have free media, free elections or human rights. It is not enough just to change the government on October 25, an awfully hard job comes after it”

She warned that people “naively think” it is impossible for visas to be reintroduced for them, when in fact it is possible. Zdravko Ponos said the list is going into the election as a “voice of reason,” and then described the state of society:

“Perhaps the fear is truly well founded that the majority of Serbia is afraid to get up, that it could break a leg if it steps out, because it has become so numb over the past 14 years. That it cannot move forward without physical therapy. We stood still for too long or went in the wrong direction. We are late for the world and for our own destiny. We are not numb, we have gone dead. The way to fix that is to finally move”

Goran Jesic, the leader of the Solidarity movement, assessed that without a change of government Serbia would lose a million young people: “This country of missed chances is entering the last chance it has.” In a statement from the rally, the list’s leaders also said that crossing the electoral threshold is beyond any doubt.

What do prosecutors say about those arrested?

The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade said that, in coordination with the prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad and with members of the Security Information Agency and other services, five people were arrested: M.V. (28), D.J. (28), D.S. (27), D.L. (28) and M.I. (28). They are suspected of planning “violence, disorder, and attacks on political opponents and police officers” on election day. According to the statement, they are also suspected of recruiting people in their surroundings for physical clashes in Belgrade, and M.V. is said to have commanded about 40 people. All have been ordered held for up to 48 hours, after which they will be questioned in Belgrade.

Masina has learned unofficially that none of the active citizens in the assemblies and the student movement in Novi Sad have been detained.

In Zemun, on an order from the Higher Court in Belgrade, the apartment of S. I., an activist of the Belgrade Remains initiative, was searched on suspicion of inciting the violent overthrow of the constitutional order. His lawyer, Rastko Naumov, said all of his electronic devices are being temporarily seized. According to prosecutors, S. I. is suspected of having been in charge of training a number of so-called mobile teams. In Vrnjacka Banja, on the instruction of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Kraljevo, M. A., a citizens’ assembly activist, was arrested on suspicion of calling for a violent change of the constitutional order. A fellow member of his assembly told N1 that police found nothing objectionable in his home.

How do those accused respond?

The Belgrade Remains initiative denied Politika’s report that S. I. was arrested for training boxers for street clashes, and announced it would use all available legal remedies. In its statement it said: “No one may be declared guilty in advance, nor exposed to a public lynching.”

Predrag Petrovic of the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy told Masina that he sees three possible aims of the arrests: disabling the mobile teams, intimidating members of other teams, and intimidating citizens. Of the third, he said:

“The third aim is to scare all the citizens of Serbia, so that as few as possible come out to vote on Sunday, because the current government is very, very afraid of a high turnout at the upcoming election”

Ilija Srdanovic, the Student List’s lead candidate, was asked by Masina whether the arrests will affect turnout and answered: “Our citizens will, regardless of such moves by the authorities, come out in large numbers and show where Serbia wants to go.” Such actions, he said, are pressure on the Student List and on citizens’ freedom to turn out for the election.

The Student List holds its closing rally on Thursday at Slavija, while the “Aleksandar Vucic, United Serbia” list held its last pre-election rally the same day in Nis. Voting is on Sunday, October 25.