Mass protests in Serbia call for true democracy and denounce corruption and authoritarianism. However, the government has responded with even greater authoritarianism, resulting in the rise of political prisoners. Meanwhile, the West looks the other way, anxious not to lose a strong partner with precious resources. Ana Vujković Šakanović explores these power dynamics and possible routes of escape.
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“I will take this opportunity, since we’re already here, to call on all law enforcement, prosecutors, and the police to arrest all of us here – because they haven’t done anything we wouldn’t do ourselves. Today it’s Marija, tomorrow it’s you, the day after tomorrow it’s me – they won’t stop, rest assured,” Igor Mihaljević, journalist.
This is not a line from a dystopian novel. It’s what I heard outside a courthouse in northern Serbia while six young activists were being processed for ‘overthrowing the constitutional order.’ What was their real crime? Meeting in a party office to plan a protest. Their punishment? National media humiliation, illegal surveillance, solitary confinement, and now – silence.
This essay is not just about Serbia’s democratic decay. It is about the normalization of repression, the criminalization of civic courage, and the global indifference toward political persecution within the borders of a European Union candidate state.
From gulags to wiretaps
The term ‘political prisoner’ evokes past regimes – Hitler’s concentration camps, Stalin’s Gulag, the East German Stasi, and apartheid South Africa. Today, however, it evokes Belarus or Putin’s Russia. Rarely does it evoke Serbia. But it should.
The surveillance of civil society, targeting of NGOs, and arrests of dissenters are well documented. The European Commission has warned of illegal state surveillance, particularly of cultural NGOs like KROKODIL. Despite these warnings, not a single official has been held accountable. Surveillance has been normalized. Repression now operates in plain sight – televised, performative, and deeply chilling.
The March 2025 crackdown
On March 15, 2025, during some of the largest mass protests in Serbia in decades, six activists were arrested after an illegally recorded meeting was broadcast. The regime wiretapped a Free Citizens’ Movement strategy session. The tape was aired on state television two days earlier. The activists – Marija Vasić, Davor Stefanović, Lado Jovičić, Mladen Cvijetić, Lazar Dinić, and Stefan Đurić – were called ‘terrorists,’ ‘foreign agents,’ and ‘enemies of the constitution.’ The term ‘overthrowing the constitutional order’ – a relic of Yugoslavia’s law against verbalni delikt – was dusted off and redeployed.
Their trial began before the prosecution had read the case file. The propaganda machine had already convicted them. Six more activists, who were part of the same political group, happened to be abroad at the time, attending a conference in Dubrovnik. They remain in de facto exile. Among them is activist Mila Pajić, who had already been targeted by the regime’s media and portrayed as the key villain in its propaganda.
From demonization to gaslighting
The regime’s tactics are nothing new. First, it labels its critics as foreign agents. Then, it accuses them of plotting ‘color revolutions’ – a term borrowed from Russian state propaganda. Even the Serbian Orthodox Church plays a role in disseminating these narratives. Pro-government tabloids circulate slander. The public internalizes it. Eventually, random vigilantes feel justified in threatening activists – or worse. The line between the state and the mob is deliberately blurred.
During one protest, 22 students were detained for splashing beer on a peer aligned with the regime. The act was trivial, yet within hours, state media branded the students ‘Nazis.’ That same night, graffiti appeared across cities: ‘Bolje ćaci nego naci’ (‘Better illiterate than Nazi’), complete with swastikas.
Exile, hunger, and silence
Some activists managed to flee. Others stayed and paid the price. Marija Vasić, one of those detained, began a hunger strike after being held for two and a half months. Neither her family nor her attorney was adequately notified about her health condition. Her son did not know if his mother, who had refused to eat or drink for several days, was alive or dead.
Ultimately, they were allowed to visit her in a prison hospital in Belgrade, where they learned that she had been transferred to the hospital on a prison van. This is another example of the treatment she received. Meanwhile, five other activists remained imprisoned. After relentless public pressure, the detainees were released to house arrest. However, even this modest concession is now under threat. The Ministry of Justice is seeking to reverse the decision, citing ‘political pressure’ as an illegitimate influence on the courts.
The message is clear: the only acceptable form of protest is no protest at all. This claim is further supported by the arrest of Marija Vasić’s son on June 28, 2025, while he was commuting from Novi Sad to Belgrade to protest. They will detain any citizen who could be a future politician or opposition leader. They will threaten and blackmail everyone else into silence.
Rule of law or ritual humiliation?
Selective justice is a hallmark of the regime. While activists face five-year sentences, no one has been held accountable for the deadly collapse of the roof of the Novi Sad train station, which killed 16 people and cost 16 million Euro in public funds. On the day of a major protest, Serbia’s entire rail system shut down due to a supposed bomb threat. Buses carrying protesters were intercepted. Drivers were interrogated. No perpetrators were found. This is authoritarianism by a thousand cuts. It doesn’t require concentration camps. All it needs is obedience, exhaustion, and disbelief.
The Rebranding of a Regime
The current ruling elite, many of whom held power during the Milošević era, have simply rebranded. They no longer shout nationalist slogans. They wear suits. They speak of EU integration. However, their violence has turned inward.
In the 1990s, this regime killed journalists such as Slavko Ćuruvija, repressed dissenters such as Latinka Perović, and led campaigns of ethnic cleansing. Today, the regime arrests students and professors, breaks up protests with secret police, and threatens to shut down public universities unless classes resume. The regime has even recently been linked to the murder of Oliver Ivanović, the leader of Kosovo Serbs. This isn’t a new regime. It’s the same regime – only with better PR.
Who are the political prisoners of Serbia?
EveryEveryone. Every citizen is living in fear of surveillance. They monitor our applications, such as WhatsApp. Students and citizens are beaten for walking near the State Parliament, where a paramilitary camp or ruling party supporters have settled. The police guard them, yet at the same time, the police won’t react if they are violent towards passengers taking photos of the paramilitary camp in Pionirski Park. Every parent fears that their child will be detained for protesting. Teachers are warned not to strike. Journalists are fired to be silenced. Every activist is smeared, detained, or forced into exile. The prisons are real. But so is the silence surrounding them.
From fear to fearlessness
When a person is pushed to their limits – when they live in constant fear for their life, not knowing if they’ll be killed by a collapsed train or bus station or arrested simply for having different thoughts – when every action can lead to violence and repression, they begin to feel cornered. Once you are pushed to the limit, fear disappears. You become fearless.
On June 28, around 140,000 people gathered in Belgrade to protest. As the protesters were dispersing, several incidents occurred involving police, in which numerous people were beaten and arrested. The police continued to make arrests the following day. A total of 78 people were detained. Some were taken from their homes, while others were arrested when the police raided the Faculty of Agriculture and detained six students. Residents of Zemun, where the faculty is located, showed solidarity by blocking off the entire neighborhood.
When people realized that nowhere was safe and that merely attending the protest could result in arrest, a wave of civil disobedience spread throughout Belgrade and then across the country. Citizens used improvised materials to set up barricades – garbage cans, construction equipment, ironing boards, and even inflatable pools became symbols of resistance.
On the morning of June 30, the Gendarmerie Special Police Unit began removing the barricades and arresting citizens once again. This sparked even more creative and determined acts of civil disobedience. When the Novi Sad city government permanently removed trash bins throughout the city, citizens responded by dumping garbage in front of the ruling party’s headquarters. In response, the government sent police to confront people peacefully crossing pedestrian crosswalks, thus blocking traffic. Crossing a crosswalk became illegal, and the police began guarding the crosswalks. Citizens forced out of one intersection moved on to the next.
When you have nowhere else to go, you resort to desperate measures. Milomir Jaćimović, a bus company owner from Novi Sad, had received threats for months for transporting students to protests free of charge. His tires were slashed, and the police repeatedly took his buses off the road and took them out of service. On July 1, under intense pressure and in front of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party’s headquarters, and in the presence of his son, he attempted to set himself on fire. The government responded by arresting both of them.
Not in my name
I write this knowing that I might be next. I am not a revolutionary. In fact, I am not even a member of any party. However, I am tired of watching a criminal elite transform the country into a private fiefdom while presenting it as a European democracy. What happens in Serbia is not just Serbia’s problem. It is a European problem. The EU must decide whether to reward performative stability or support those who pay the price for real democracy. Not in my name.