WHATâS HAPPENING IN SERBIA?
TL;DR: weâre living under a dictatorship. people are currently protesting the deaths caused by decisions the government made while prioritising the election over human lives. mainstream news are making it seem like the protesters are hooligans who are protesting new safety measures and not the dictatorship they refuse to even acknowledge.
hereâs a brief list of things that caused the people to protest:
the elections have been rigged since the moment aleksandar vuÄiÄ became president. not even in a relatively subtle way like in the usa (gerrymandering), but by literally replacing sacks of voting papers with ones that are voting for sns (srpska narodna stranka, the presidentâs party)
we were lied to about when the first covid-19 case appeared in serbia. the government withheld information from us because it benefited them.
also, about a week before the lockdown, the president made fun of the virus, encouraging people to âgo shop in milano if they wantâ. when the situation got serious, he shifted the blame to the people.
hospitals all around the country were and still are severely underfunded. theyâre reusing masks, donât have enough space for all the patients, and the tests weâre still given arenât accurate.
the lockdown was lifted prematurely because of the parliamentary elections. if you look up âserbia covid19 casesâ on google, youâll see that the second wave started around june 21st, which is when the election was.
right after the election was over, the government set extreme safety measures, including: police enforced lockdown fri-sun, an attempt to force all belgrade students out of their dorms during exam season, etc.
last night (july 7th), there was a huge unorganized protest outside of the belgrade parliament building.
as expected, the police turned it into a violent protest. they used tear gas 26 times, attacked people who werenât even protesting, and used unnecessary force against those who were. a man was choked the same way george floyd was.
only n1 (cnnâs channel) actually informed people that this was happening, and their website was down all night last night. every other network was airing their usual program, since theyâre controlled by the government.
the people got into the parliament building a few times, but were ultimately forced out violently by the police.
there were protests in other cities too, but they werenât as large.
rts (the most watched channel in the country) is putting all the blame on the protesters and making it seem as if theyâre protesting the new safety measures, and not the dictatorship of aleksandar vuÄiÄ.
every other international news source is pretty much doing the same.
the protests will continue. in case theyâre successful, there will be another election, one that wonât put only sns members in the parliament (they make up more than 70% as of right now).
in case theyâre not successful, weâll be expecting a change of the constitution that will state that thereâs no limit to how many terms a president can have. weâll live under complete dictatorship.
the most you, outside of serbia, can do is share correct information and spread awareness about whatâs happening.
reblog and share this post, share other posts (on instagram especially) made by serbian people, call out false information when you see it.