SERBIA: Protesters Repressed & more – 19th Aug 2025

Dobar dan from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Serbia Update from the 19th of August twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Serbia.

Clashes broke out in several Serbian cities during the anti-corruption protests between students and the riot police from Wednesday the 13th to Friday the 15th. Videos of violent behavior from the police from Wednesday surfaced online, gaining traction and prompting protests on Thursday and Friday. Police deployed tear gas, while guarding government supporters threw fireworks at the peaceful protesters. One government supporter even fired a shot into the air with a pistol while protected by the police.

Dozens of protesters were arrested, both students and citizens, who later reported on the violence they had experienced while in police custody. Many suffered injuries due to the police’s excessive force.

Recall that the students and citizens have been protesting since the deadly railway station tragedy in the northern city of Novi Sad, demanding accountability from the state officials.

Not only did the Serbian police use excessive violence on peaceful protesters, but one of the officers, Marko Kričak, may be facing charges for the abuse, torture and sexual harassment of a student Nikolina Sinđelić. The opposition party SRCE announced they would file charges against Kričak on Saturday the 16th, quoting Nikolina and saying that he threatened to rape her. The SRCE added that she was in police custody for around three hours, along with her peers from the faculty, who were all forced to lie on the concrete floor and kneel against the wall.

Nikolina went on TV to tell her story, thus publicly testifying about the abuse she had endured while in police custody for no reason. She added that Kričak slapped her, banged her head against the wall, and threatened to rape her in front of the entire police force.

Despite the ongoing unrest among protesters and the police, the two public media services, Radio Television of Serbia, or the RTS, and Radio Television of Vojvodina, or the RTV, have featured minimal or no reporting from the spot and didn’t say what the reason was behind the protests. Professors of journalism said that both the RTS and the RTV abuse resources and money from the public to fund pro-regime propaganda, by reporting selectively and often falsely.

During the clashes between the protesters and the police that took place from Wednesday the 13th to Friday the 15th, the RTS had no extraordinary news programs addressing the topic, but instead broadcast sports games and cultural shows. As for the RTV, they featured a minute of speech from the interior minister Dačić on Wednesday. Such behavior from the two publicly funded media outlets is against Serbia’s media law, because the legislation obliges public services to report on issues of public interest.

The news about police brutality during the anti-corruption protests has reached the EU, and on Thursday the 14th, EU representatives told the news outlet Radio Free Europe, or RFE, that they are closely following the situation. They have called for an end to any escalation, noting that citizens in Serbia have the right to freedom of assembly and peaceful demonstration, and that the police must respect that. The representatives also said that violence against journalists reporting independently during the coverage of demonstrations is inadmissible, saying that it shows a decrease in media freedom.

Since we mentioned the Interior Ministry earlier…On Wednesday the 13th, the RFE media outlet published a report about the leaked documents they have found on the dark web regarding the government’s purchases of the Chinese-made Huawei Safe City surveillance systems. The program is currently deployed in Belgrade, Novi Sad, and Niš, and it features recognition of faces and car license plates, aimed at providing the police with more widespread monitoring.

However, facial recognition surveillance programs are not legal in Serbia due to public resistance, despite the efforts from the government to legalize them. The RFE reported that the government used the Serbian IT company Informatics AD to make the purchases. The company declined to comment on its role in the scheme.

In the wake of protests in Serbia, many watchdogs and critics have warned that the police could misuse such surveillance systems in order to track down activists and protesters, reinforcing authoritarian control.

While on the topic of international purchases, last week, Elbit, an Israeli-based international military technology company and defense contractor, revealed that it will supply the Serbian army with a wide range of weapons and military systems. In a deal worth around 170 trillion dinars, which is around 1.7 billion dollars, Elbit will ship out drones, long-range precision missiles, electronic warfare systems, and command-and-control platforms designed to boost battlefield operations.

For a while now, Elbit had been refusing to disclose which European country was their client, and upon revealing that it was Serbia, they noted that the country’s officials requested confidentiality.

On another note, the independent organization Shanghai Ranking Consultancy published its Academic Ranking of World Universities for twenty twenty-five last week. They analyzed more than 2,500 higher education institutions and made a list of the top one thousand best universities in the world. They looked into the number of Nobel Prize and Fields Medal laureates among alumni and staff, published papers, and the number of highly cited researchers.

The University of Belgrade ranked among the top five hundred, which is the same as in twenty twenty-four. On the other hand, the University of Novi Sad didn’t make it to the top one thousand this year. The first place on the list went to Harvard University, followed by Stanford and MIT. At the bottom of the list was the Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in China.

In some news about the economy, the state’s statistical office reported on Tuesday the 12th that the year-on-year inflation for the month of July amounted to around five percent. Compared to June, it increased by around 0.5 percent, and compared to July of twenty twenty-four, inflation went up by around one percent.

As for the foreign direct investments, or FDIs, they decreased by around forty percent in the first half of twenty twenty-five compared to the same period last year, which was around 175 billion dinars, about two billion dollars. The central bank said on Thursday the 14th that the fall in the total FDI inflow in the first half of twenty twenty-five is a result of above-average one-off inflows last year, as well as reduced investment confidence globally.

In some environmental news, the NGO initiative Right to Water said on Saturday the 16th that from June to August, more than a hundred locations across Serbia reported having no drinking water, with some not having water at all. In a statement, Right to Water wrote that this was due to neglected water infrastructure, which is in an increasingly bad condition. They blamed the government for poor planning, lack of investment and non-implementation of water regulations when it comes to the water infrastructure, mainly in the smaller towns and villages.

Right to Water also added that the lack of water in the summer months is especially unforgivable, as the temperatures in Serbia reached over forty degrees Celsius, which is over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

Closing off this edition with some cultural news, from Wednesday the 20th to Sunday the 24th, Belgrade will host its annual music and film Zemun Fest festival. It will take place at the banks of the Danube River, and will feature several movie premieres and concerts from artists such as Who See, Osvajači and Mile Kekin.

For more information about the Zemun Fest festival, check out the link in the show notes!

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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Do daljnjeg, zbogom!