Police raid on student protest in Belgrade

Report from the Ad Hoc Coalition for the Women's Political Rights

Dear friends,

Yesterday it was 9th of November, in some places also known as the International Day Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism. The Serbian parliament had a session in which the opposition parties submitted a demand for new elections. Therefore, for that day Belgrade students organisations, under the title "Protest" (about 8 organizations), announced the protest march at 1 pm, while the oppositional political parties gathered in "Alliance for Changes" announced their protest at 3 pm.

Feminists, from various NGOs, organized around the Ad Hoc Coalition for Women's Political Rights. We chose this political occasion to print 6.000 leaflets, and distribute them on the streets of Belgrade. The leaflets state our basic demand for involvement in the decision making processes.

Despite the constant rain and strong wind all day yesterday, several thousand students gathered at the students' protest. We were also there - seven activists from the Ad Hoc Coalition - to give our support to students, to monitor the protest and distribute our leaflets. In their march the students walked by the faculty buildings in the center of the town: Technology, Engineering, Law... screaming "Get Out" - demanding symbolical liberation of the Belgrade University.

At one moment when we turned onto a rather narrow street, the police showed up from the front side and started to beat randomly... so everyone started to run. It turned the crowd into a panic. It was a fearful stampede with people pushing, screaming and falling. Only ten minutes later the brutal and severe police attack started again. Just when the students and citizens somehow exceeded their fearful panic and continued to walk, on the wide street in the front of the Yugoslav parliament, police forces started to push from the back. Again, running, wounds, anger and panic production.

In the evening the feminists from the Ad Hoc Coalition met again.

We noted:

• one thousand leaflets were distributed
• three activists were hurt in stampede
• all of us felt at moments very bad, because of the Serbian political situation, and because some students were shouting to the police "Go to Kosovo" and "You are Ustashes" (Ustashes were Croat soldiers supporting German nazis in the Second World War) and in this way reproducing hatred and the 'enemy'.

• hundreds of students were exposed to fear and panic - a very well known violation of human rights in fascist regimes: violation of human right to life without fear.

The independent media in the evening reported that more than 50 students were wounded, some of them badly, but none of them went to the official hospital. On the regime's media there was not a single word about the protest and beating, only 10 minutes of hate speech about "Protest students" how they are paid by NATO etc.

As well, citizens that gathered at 3 pm for the opposition march were blocked by the police and were not allowed to walk the streets as planned.

Also, more than 30 buses with citizens from different towns in Serbia were prevented from reaching Belgrade and joining the demonstrations. Police stopped them with the explanation that buses were not technically OK, and that "buses with protesters pollute the environment with exhaust gas"!

Feminists from the Ad Hoc Coalition feel that at the moment on one side, the regime is ready to do anything to protesters: so shoot to beat to imprison ... since the police on the streets are those "specialists" who practised torturing Albanian citizens in Kosovo in the last ten years. On the other hand the regime knows that international public is monitoring Belgrade, waiting to get "Him" for Den Haag Tribunal. The regime is also aware that many people are against them and as a result find low intensity torturing more efficient, such as: stopping buses; "only" beating and not imprisoning; making obstacles in every way for independent media, for example creating construction on places where protesters meet... etc