Serbian Police ‘Allow Pro-Govt Protesters to Breach Curfew’

Beatovic told BIRN that the form of the protest frees people from fear and makes them aware that they are not alone.

"In Serbia there are many frightened and blackmailed people. This noisy protest helps them to see that there is an opposing side," he said.

However, in the last few days, Vucic's supporters have organised their own counter-protests, holding flaming torches from the tops of buildings and playing recorded insults directed at opposition politicians from loudspeakers.

The Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, along with 11 other civic associations, asked the Serbian Ombudsman on Monday to check what the Interior Ministry has been doing to ensure that the counter-protests are legal.

Family matters involved

On Sunday night, pro-government supporters used loudspeakers to insult an opposition leader, Dragan Djilas, calling him a thief in front of the building where his children live. The incident caused Djilas, a former mayor of Belgrade, to release an emotional video in which he accused President Aleksandar Vucic of instigating the harassment, announcing that he would mass his own supporters the following day at the same place.

The next day, on Monday evening, most of the country's opposition leaders, backed by around 100 members of the public, breached the curfew to gather in front of the building where Djilas's children live as a sign of a protest and to stop what they called 'pro-government hooligans' gathering there.

Vucic responded at a Monday night press conference by saying that nobody directly mentioned Djilas's children, stressing that his children have been threatened numerous times. "I don't think you can win the elections by crying," Vucic said.

BIRN also contacted the Interior...