cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/10298163
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Interpol rejected Serbia’s request to issue an international arrest warrant for six activists and students associated with the organization STAV and the Movement of Free Citizens (PSG), who, according to their legal defense, have been living in political exile for the past 16 months.
Veljko Milić, attorney for some of the defendants, [said] that Interpol determined the case to be political in nature and therefore would not act on Serbia’s requests.
According to him, the decision is consistent with Interpol’s rules, under which it does not intervene in cases it considers to have a political character.
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Six activists were arrested last March and spent months in prison. Another six were outside Serbia when the arrest warrants were issued and have not returned since. All of them deny they committed acts the prosecution accuses them of.
The group members who are currently living in exile, stated today that Interpol concluded in its reasoning that the matter is political, and therefore declined to act on Serbia’s request, FoNet news agency reports.
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Arrests and charges after a leaked conversation
On 13 March 2025, two days before the massive protest in Belgrade, the biggest pro-government television channels jointly broadcast a two-hour special dedicated to a leaked recording of the meeting of activists in Novi Sad.
The activists, who were not the organisers of the protests, discussed possible actions they could take depending on the course of events.
The discussion was described by the pro-government journalists as proof of pending bloodshed and civil war on 15 March. The protest on that day passed relatively peacefully, with accusations against the government that it had, at one point, used an unidentified acoustic device against the protesters.
A day before the protest, six activists were arrested in Novi Sad. Another six participants in the meeting were outside Serbia when the arrests happened and have not returned to the country since. An arrest warrant for them was subsequently issued.
The imprisoned activists were released and sent to house arrest several months later, following a hunger strike of one of the activists, high school professor Marija Vasić. This measure was also revoked later during the year.
On 12 May, after two months in prison, the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad officially charged the activists with preparing an attack on the constitutional order and calling for a violent overthrow of the constitutional order. The Prosecutor’s Office asked for a maximum sentence of five years in prison for preparing these acts.