Repression in Serbia

Turning Activists into Criminal Offenders

Distribution of election material – badges, stickers, posters and T-shirts – at the height of an election campaign is everywhere considered a regular activity aimed at winning political supporters. But when Serbia is in question, this is not as naive an enterprise as it might appear at first glance. Especially if it involves the distribution of posters and T-shirts of the Otpor (Resistance) movement. Judging by the number of prosecuted poster-related cases, the police have devoted much more energy to stopping this type of “offenders” than murderers and thieves.

AIM Podgorica, October 1, 2000

(By AIM Belgrade correspondent)

According to a survey by the Humanitarian Law Fund it appears that the police in this country are the busiest public service. Namely, from the beginning of May until mid September this year, they apprehended some 2,500 people – about 2,000 activists of the Otpor movement, 400 activists of various political parties, and about a hundred activists of non-government organizations. Most of them are below 25 years of age, and approximately twenty are minors ages 16-18. There was the case of the arrest of an 11-year-old boy in Ivanjica, whose father was reluctantly allowed by the police to see him off to the police station he was taken to. A police inspector, according to eyewitnesses, was dead serious while questioning this dangerous offender.

As the final stages of the election campaign neared, the police were even more diligent. According to the Humanitarian Law Fund, from September 1 to September 15, they brought in 20 people per day on the average – mostly activists of Otpor and various political parties. Certain party leaders weren't spared either. In the same period, police forced their way into numerous offices of non-government organizations, impounding computers, phone books and lists of associates.

When the police had too much on their hands, thugs would came to the rescue: the Fund 's survey shows that assaults by unidentified private persons on activists of Otpor and people promoting the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), the Otpor campaign Gotov Je (He's Finished) and the NGOs' campaign Vreme Je (It's Time) have become more frequent.

As the most drastic incident, the Fund's report cites an event that happened at the Belgrade School of Architecture on May 23, when a group of 40 young men with surgical masks armed with batons attacked students and professors of the school after a rally staged in protest of the government's taking over of the popular Belgrade Studio B radio and TV station and pressure on independent news media. The attack left some twenty students seriously and lightly injured. In several instances, the Fund identified the attackers as members of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia-Yugoslav Left coalition. Last week a minor from Otpor in Nis was abused by members of a WWII veterans organization.

In the first half of September, the police resorted to much harsher methods: in addition to arrests, questioning and a strategically placed slap or two, they began to physically abusing some of the detainees. According to the Fund's data, 19 people were victims of such mistreatment. One such example of drastic abuse of Otpor activists took place in Vladicin Han on September 8. Three police, including senior police officer Radivoje Stojmenovic, tormented seven young men they took into custody. They tied their feet and beat them on the soles of their feet and their private parts, threatened to strangle them by tying rope around their necks, beat them with batons and hands all over their bodies. One boy had his head slammed against the wall, another was caused great pain by an officer pulling his earring. They were forced to stand, knees bent and arms outstretched in front of them, and whenever one of them moved, he was hit on the head with fists and batons all over his body. They were threatened they would be taken to Kosovo and killed on the border. The torture lasted some three hours, said Natasa Kandic, the Fund's director, when disclosing the organization's report to the public. Kandic stressed that the police attitude showed it involved an organized and synchronized campaign with clear orders, instructions and objectives, and that it was chiefly aimed at Vojvodina province.

“The fact that police exhibited an identical attitude in all these cases shows that they were acting on specific orders, deliberately violating the Constitution and law. This blatant violation of legality indicates that the police were aware that they would not be held responsible for their actions. If what Otpor activists did involved any clear violation of the law, the police should have initiated appropriate criminals proceedings. This, however, was done in only four cases so far.” There are indications, the chairwoman of the Fund says, that the authorities could use the data gathered to launch a massive campaign of prosecuting their political opponents, primarily Otpor activists, but also of other people who were “processed' in this manner.

In all cases reviewed by the Fund's lawyers, the police illegally apprehended Otpor activists and other people (in violation of Article 11 of the Law on Internal Affairs). A proper detention order was issued only in one case. As a rule, after illegally taking them into custody, police questioned the prisoners, they took their photographs, fingerprinted them, as if they were criminal offenders. The law clearly stipulates that taking photographs and fingerprints is carried out only if there are grounds for suspicion that a persons in question have committed a crime. By their illegal actions, the police opened files on numerous young people, university and secondary school students with no criminal records whatsoever, as if there were actual criminals. Furthermore, the police conducted illegal searches of homes of some 500 activists and sympathizers of Otpor, without observing due process in a single instance.

By refusing to register the Otpor movement as a legal organization on June 9, in violation of all constitutional provisions and guarantees of basic rights and freedoms, the Federal Justice Ministry appears to have given the police a free hand in stepping up repression against its activists. “The police do not even hide they have orders to arrest all persons wearing T-shirts displaying the Otpor emblem, a clenched fist, or take part in the Gotov Je campaign, because the stance of the Interior Ministry is that this organization is banned. The Fund has data showing that in July and August alone, the police detained over 600 young people, even minors and children, who wore the “forbidden T-shirt” in public.

According to Kandic, there is a certain difference in the ardor displayed in following orders between “local police and those who used to serve in Kosovo.” Kosovo policemen, according to testimonies of the detained people, treat Otpor activists as “terrorists” and “NATO hirelings” that should be punished on the spot. In addition, they openly show that any mention of respect for human rights is “a hostile activity.”

There were cases in which inspectors said they had to be “more energetic” because their superiors objected to their “mild” attitude. In September, several inspectors warned Otpor activists to be careful because time would come when they would be detained, questioned and beaten not by local policemen, but some other people. This was supposedly to say that beatings by the “locals” were more gentle.

In addition to repression against political opponents of the regime surveyed by the Fund, the police are also “showing muscle” in dealing with newspaper sellers, which many passers-by witnessed in the streets of Belgrade in the past several weeks. Since the elections were called, the police patrols have been daily harassing street vendors of domestic independent papers and foreign magazines. Occasional campaigns against street sellers is no news in the country's capital city, but in the past such actions would even earn them praise for bringing more order to the streets. This time, however, the campaign to “establish order” was exceptionally systematic. As the peddlers themselves say, in the past inspectors would fine them 100 dinars and it would end at that. This time around, however, they warned them, casually playing with their batons, with the words: “You have a minute to pack and get lost, or we will seize everything you have there.” When one of them dared to say: “Seize it!” the policeman became enraged, grabbed him by the shirt and yelled: “You have one minute, or we'll beat the s... out of you!”

The situation in Novi Sad seems even worse. There they beat without even giving a warning. According to newspaper reports, three young men, after leaving a cafe in a busy downtown street, were stopped by a man who pointed a gun at them and said: “Police, lie down!” The same instant several of his colleagues, some in uniforms some in plain clothes, came running towards them. They did not even try to inquire as to what was going on and immediately started beating them with their batons, fists and pistols. Afterward they were taken to a police station. While riding in the police car they heard one policeman giving a report over walkie-talkie: “Two suspects, height 190cm, dressed in black, apprehended,” he proudly said. The fact that the young men were 175cm in height and were not dressed in black did not bother the policemen at all. Only when they arrived in the station did they realized their mistake. But still this did not prevent them from detaining the young men for another hour, asking them all sorts of questions and opening police files on them.

Letting them out of the station a plainclothes policeman told them: “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time; but at least you could see for yourselves that the police take their job seriously.”

Police harassment, obviously, has reached a new, higher level: now it is enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. God have mercy on you if you're wearing the wrong T-shirt as well...

Vesna Bjekic

(AIM)