March 10, 2025.
“Civil society in Serbia has been under pressure all the time since the large protests have been going on. Serbia has been added to the watch list of CIVICUS Monitor, because the authorities are seriously restricting civil space and inciting violence against tens of thousands of people protesting against corruption. Since February 25 and the police raid on the premises of the Civic Initiative, the atmosphere has been combative. The attacks of the authorities on a daily basis are more frequent and I think this is their nervousness because they cannot hold the strings in their hands. They are trying to find easy targets and deal with critics of the government,” Maja Stojanović, director of “Civil Initiatives”, told N1.
Civic initiatives have not received any feedback since the police raided their premises on February 25.
“On the warrant it was written that it was a pre-investigation procedure, but since then we have not received any information. We sent a complaint about the entire procedure because the police officers came without a warrant, stayed much longer than was necessary… So we did everything we could, because we want to influence that such behavior by the police and the prosecutor’s office stops,” Maja Stojanović, director of “Citizen Initiatives“, told N1.
She added that she and her family receive threats, as do other members of civil society organizations.
“The matter got even worse when we opened the protective mechanism ‘Shield’ for students whom we organized and offered legal aid. It was too much for the authorities, and then the attacks on me and my family began. But regardless of that, ‘Shield’ is always active, we have lawyers, these days we will announce a call for volunteers. ‘Shield’ is doing its job. Just yesterday we had about 20 educators who contacted us about salaries. People from other public institutions are also contacting us who are under pressure because they were at protests, so they received warnings before they were fired or suffered mobbing because of it. Our lawyers will work on those cases and active legal protection is organized. All those people gathered by ‘Shield’ make sure that March 15 goes well,” said Stojanović.
When asked whether they report cases of threats and whether and who can protect them if threats also come from the President of Serbia, Maja Stojanović says:
“We report threats to the police, we believe that they are there to protect us and the citizens and basic human rights. The problem, however, is the political control of the police and the prosecutor’s office, and it is difficult to fight against it. But if the citizens stand together against this type of government, the government cannot do much. In the coming days, we expect the government to be even more determined in its intention to remain in power illegally. In previous years, we also had problems that indicated that there would not be a democratic transition of government. And how this government is increasingly visible he is increasingly losing control of various structures and the pressure is increasing,” explains interviewee N1.
Stojanović also underlines that the role of civil society organizations is to take on most of the pressure from the government, so that students suffer as little as possible.
When asked whether the public discrediting of the government still has the same effect as before, Stojanović says:
“Public discrediting does not work for them. The majority of citizens saw that after their attacks we received the support of the academic public, students, and citizens, and I think that it is now known exactly who is on the level of human rights and who is violating them. It is another matter how much the government will threaten our security individually, that is another question.”
He states that reactions to all events in Serbia come from abroad as well as from international organizations.
“It is recognized that there are violations of human rights in Serbia. The situation is not calming down, the students are fighting successfully and this government is coming to an end. The president wishes for violence on March 15, this is indicated by the camp installed in Pionirski Park and the announcement of the arrival of even more people. It suits the authorities to have as much violence as possible in order to take extraordinary measures and get new mechanisms for action. But I don’t think that will happen, there will be no violence. The young people have repeatedly bypassed everything he wishes for and I think that March 15 will be an indicator of how many people are for a change of government, for the rule of law, and the number of people who will gather can influence the situation in the country,” concluded Maja Stojanović, director of the “Citizens’ Initiative”.
Watch the entire guest appearance in the video attachment.