#FreeToProtest: Serbia’s student-led protest movement
Last week, Serbian students cycled into Strasbourg, travelling 1,400 kilometres from Novi Sad to speak to the European Parliament and the Council of Europe about protests across Serbia — a movement led by them, which is now into its sixth month.
The protests were sparked by the collapse of a canopy in the newly renovated Novi Sad railway station, which killed 16 people.
Protesters want answers. What caused the tragedy? Who is taking responsibility, and what measures are being put in place to guarantee people’s safety? The government must be transparent, they say, and the public must be given access to relevant documents and information. And, following an attack on protesters in March, they want the perpetrators to be held accountable. They want change.
‘You warned us not to make a sound. Now hear our footsteps shake the ground,’ read one of the protest banners.
And yet, instead of listening, the Serbian government has responded with force, cracking down on free speech. Along with the attack in March, in late February police raided the premises of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina in Novi Sad and the offices of several civil society organisations in Belgrade.
Earlier this month, as part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response coalition, we travelled to Serbia to express solidarity with independent journalists facing escalating attacks and to gather more information on the deteriorating state of press freedom. We met with journalists’ associations, media outlets, reporters, and civil society groups to hear directly from them about the threats and challenges they face. We also met with the Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of the Interior, the Serbian police, and with representatives from the European Union (EU), the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE), and the Council of Europe (COE).
’The EU needs to speak up’, David Diaz-Jogeix, Senior Director of Programmes at ARTICLE 19, said during a press conference. Serbian authorities, especially President Aleksander Vucic, must stop all public attacks on journalists, activists, and non-governmental organisations. If they refuse to do so, the EU must freeze negotiations regarding Chapter 23 – ‘Judiciary and Fundamental Rights’ – of the EU accession process, thereby stalling progress on Serbia’s ambitions to join the EU.
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