Belgrade, April 9, 2025.
Civil society organizations – Belgrade Center for Human Rights, Civic Initiatives, Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights – YUCOM, Initiative A 11, FemPlatz and Crta submitted a criminal complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime against unknown persons on suspicion of having committed a criminal act of terrorism on March 15, 2025, when they used an unidentified dangerous tool that interrupted a peaceful protest in Belgrade during the observance of 15 minutes of silence.
At today’s media conference, the organizations pointed out the activities they have undertaken before domestic and international institutions, with the aim of protecting the human rights of Serbian citizens, including addressing the United Nations, which resulted in the initiation of special procedures, as well as submitting a request for a temporary measure before the European Court of Human Rights.
After the protest, 4,000 citizens turned to our organizations with testimonies about the consequences they experienced – from feelings of panic and fear, to physical injuries. More than 3,000 anonymized testimonies are now available to the public on the zvuk.labs.rs platform.
The President of the Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights – YUCOM, Katarina Golubović, pointed out at the press conference that on March 15 there was an attack on the life, body and freedom of a large number of citizens, which is why a criminal complaint was submitted to the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime today. She added that the organizations are in contact with the First Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade, which is conducting its own preliminary investigation in connection with March 15.
According to her, the mass response of citizens to civil society organizations clearly indicates the concern that someone tried to attack them and reflects the deep-rooted distrust of citizens in the institutions of the system.
Since the deadline for the Republic of Serbia to submit comments to the European Court of Human Rights regarding the alleged use of sonic or other means during the protest on March 15 expired on April 8, we expect the Court’s notification within the day or tomorrow, Vladica Ilić from the Belgrade Center for Human Rights told those present at the conference.
In accordance with the narrative used to address the public, the state in its response to the European Court of Human Rights denied the use and possession of any sonic or similar weapons, Ilić added.
The zvuk.labs.rs platform contains testimonies about a sound attack during a peaceful gathering where citizens paid tribute to the victims of the falling canopy in Novi Sad. As explained by Đorđe Krivokapić from the SHARE Foundation, the testimonies are grouped according to the zones that cover the area from the Palace of Albania to Slavija. The database also contains data on analyzes of sound and other stimuli described by citizens, with a special focus on psychological effects – fear, anxiety, confusion, a feeling of numbness and other consequences that, for some citizens, last almost a month after the protest.
Recall that sound experts from the non-profit organization EarShot analyzed four different recordings from the scene of the sound impact and preliminarily determined the noise produced by the Vortex Ring Gun or Vortex Cannon. It is important to emphasize that social psychology professor Clifford Stott from the British University of Keele, in his preliminary opinion, explained the behavior of people at the time of the incident as a sudden change in behavior that is not the result of a false alarm, but the presence of an “external force or stimulus that deserves additional investigation.”