(27 Jun 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Belgrade – 27 June 2024
1. Various of right-wing extremist protesters on street, chanting and clapping to call for banning of festival (Miredita) promoting cultural exchange with Kosovo
2. Wide of protesters with flags and signs
3. Various of protesters with signs of festival name with red cross over it
4. Various of protesters arriving, chanting and waving Serbian flag
5. Various of flares being lit during protest, protesters chanting and waving flags
6. Wide protesters in front of the venue with fireworks
7. Close of fireworks
8. Wide of protest, fireworks
STORYLINE:
Serbian police on Thursday banned a festival that promotes cultural exchange with Kosovo, in a sign of growing nationalism and government pressure on liberal voices in the Balkan country.
A police statement cited security concerns as the reason to ban the Mirdita, dobar dan event that was due to start later on Thursday in Belgrade with a theatre show from Kosovo.
Serbia does not recognise the 2008 declaration of independence by its former province, which is overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian.
The Mirdita, dobar dan festival, whose name means “hello” in Albanian and Serbian, is organised by youth groups from Serbia and Kosovo seeking to bridge ethnic divisions created by a 1998-99 war and the postwar tensions.
The police ban came after several dozen right-wing extremists gathered outside the festival venue on Thursday, seeking to prevent it taking place while waving Serbian flags.
Police said they wanted to prevent “danger to the security of people and property and to public peace and order on a larger scale.”
A statement said that the anti-festival gathering is also banned.
Several government officials have sharply criticised the festival in the past several days, describing it as anti-Serb. While the festival has been held alternatively in Serbia and Kosovo for the past decade, this year’s ban in Serbia illustrates a general toughening of the government’s stance toward its critics.
Earlier this week, authorities banned a Bosnian actor and author from entering Serbia, saying he was a threat to national security, and deported him back to Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital. In the past months, Serbia’s independent and investigative journalists have complained of increased legal pressure and threats.
Serbia is formally seeking entry into the European Union but the increasingly authoritarian government of populist President Aleksandar Vucic has steadily drifted away from the EU’s pro-democracy values while nurturing close ties with Russia and China.
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