Serbian Private Security Company Protects Vucic Posters

The security company Intersec from Novi Sad is mounting a 24-hour guard over a prominent poster of Serbian Progressive Party leader and presidential candidate Aleksandar Vucic in the northern city of Novi Sad until polling day on April 2.

"I have to be here, this is my job, and we are guarding this poster 24 hours a day. My company sent me here and that is all I know," a guard keeping his eye on a large Vucic poster in Serbia's second city told BIRN.

Both Intersec and the Progressive Party declined BIRN's request to comment.

Intersec has been in charge of security at the well-known EXIT festival, as well as for the concerts of Ceeloo Green in Novi Sad, Red Hot Chilli Peppers in Indjija, Madonna in Belgrade, as well as for New Year's Eve celebrations in Novi Sad and sports events.

In September 2016, US celebrity Paris Hilton posted a photograph on Snapchat of them providing security for her on a visit to Serbia where she DJ-ed for a private party in the capital Belgrade.

The Vojvodjanski gradjanski centar [Vojvodina Civic Centre], an NGO, has launched an online campaign, urging people to report posters in public places where they suspect they should not be.

"We are calling on people to take pictures of those posters … and after collecting ten reports we send them to the city communal inspection. At the same time, we call the public 'Greenery of the City' company, which is obliged to remove the posters," Jelena Dukaric, an activist from the organsation, explained.

Parties should have to pay for the cost of removing the posters, not citizens, she underlined.

Serbia's law on advertising says posters can only be put up in places where local authorities decide they are allowed and where they have permits....