{"id":33635,"date":"2021-12-13T10:58:47","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T09:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/?post_type=publikacija&p=33635"},"modified":"2023-10-27T12:18:25","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T10:18:25","slug":"freedom-of-assembly-under-attack-problematic-police-conduct-at-environmental-protests","status":"publish","type":"publikacija","link":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/publication\/freedom-of-assembly-under-attack-problematic-police-conduct-at-environmental-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of Assembly under Attack: Problematic Police Conduct at Environmental Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

The initial reason for the protests was the Government\u2019s plan to allow the exploitation of lithium in western Serbia with potentially enormous environmental consequences. The organisation\u00a0Kreni-Promeni<\/em>\u00a0[Go-Change] came to the fore as the leader of these peaceful protests. Citizens gathered peacefully for two Saturdays in a row, first on\u00a027 November<\/a>, when they blocked roads and bridges for one hour, and then on\u00a04 December<\/a>, when a much larger crowd gathered in more than 50 cities in Serbia for a two-hour-long road blockade. As a result of serious public pressure, the Serbian authorities\u00a0met<\/a>\u00a0the two protest demands. The organisers withdrew, but other environmental associations, assessing that only a part of the bigger problem has been solved, organised blockades on\u00a011 December<\/a>\u00a0as well.<\/p>\n

However, the actions of the police during the protests themselves, but also in the days before and after them, are a cause for concern. Namely, after the first protest, video clips appeared showing police officers using\u00a0excessive force<\/a>\u00a0against the citizens of Belgrade. The public was, however, especially disturbed by the footage from the\u00a0events in \u0160abac<\/a>\u00a0that showed possible coordination between the people in civilian clothes who started to physically confront the protesters, and the police who left the scene a few moments earlier.<\/p>\n

In the week between the two protests, the Ministry of the Interior introduced a\u00a0special telephone hotline<\/a>\u00a0to report blockades that endangered security during the protests, which human rights defenders characterised as potential intimidation in view of the new blockades. The Minister of the Interior\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that next time the police would \u201cuse violence\u201d (author\u2019s note: this\u00a0<\/em>does not refer to the legally allowed, proportional force), at the same time calling the blockade of roads an act of fascism. Ahead of the second protest, several activists and journalists from various parts of Serbia\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that police officers had paid them a visit and warned them not to go. The President of Serbia\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0on the police to step aside and let the citizens block the roads; they seem to have heard him, as not a single blue uniform was seen anywhere at the protests the following Saturday. On the other hand, citizens reported the presence of\u00a0plainclothes police officers<\/a>\u00a0who took their personal information. The epilogue was that a large number of protesters received – to their home addresses –\u00a0misdemeanour warrants<\/a>\u00a0for blocking traffic, which experts assess as problematic and another form of pressure on citizens.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Read the full report here:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.preugovor.org\/Brief-Alert\/1701\/Freedom-of-Assembly-under-Attack-Problematic.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The end of 2021 was marked by environmental protests. Citizens gathered peacefully for three Saturdays in a row, blocking key roads in more than 50 cities of Serbia. The response of the police during, but also in the days before and after the protest, is a cause for concern. In a new prEUgovor Brief Alert, the BCBP together with its partners points out the problematic actions of the police about the standards for securing public gatherings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7415,11196],"tags":[11201,11200],"vrsta":[9441],"pdfpub":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-33635","publikacija","type-publikacija","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bscp","category-preugovor-2","tag-brief-alert","tag-environmental-protests","vrsta-analysis"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija\/33635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/publikacija"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33635"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija\/33635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33650,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacija\/33635\/revisions\/33650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33635"},{"taxonomy":"vrsta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vrsta?post=33635"},{"taxonomy":"pdfpub","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pdfpub?post=33635"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=33635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}