{"id":27291,"date":"2020-07-13T16:17:15","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T14:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/?p=27291"},"modified":"2020-07-13T16:17:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T14:17:15","slug":"testimonies-of-police-brutality-after-one-hits-another-one-comes-to-do-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/testimonies-of-police-brutality-after-one-hits-another-one-comes-to-do-the-same\/","title":{"rendered":"Testimonies of Police Brutality: After One Hits, Another One Comes to Do the Same"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dozens of individual sneakers scattered on the corner of Takovska and Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra streets \u2013 this scene was created after a police cordon \u201ccleared\u201d that space from demonstrators at a Belgrade protest that took place on the night between July 8 and 9. A few minutes before the police intervention, Natan Albahari<\/strong>, international secretary of the Movement of Free Citizens<\/em>, was at that exact location. He tells the Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia<\/em> (CINS) that he was one of those who suffered blows from police nightsticks despite not having done anything.<\/p>

Albahari underscores that he was not interested in clashing with the police and that he had started to walk away.<\/p>

\u201cAt one point a charge began, the police headed toward us en masse, toward Bulevar and that intersection,\u201d Albahari recalls.<\/p>

A stampede ensued and our interlocutor says that he saw policemen hitting anyone who was in their way and that people wanted to get out of the way and run.<\/p>

\u201cThat turned into a horror scene where people were literally climbing over each other to escape. People were falling in front of me.\u201d<\/p>

He says that he later found out that the police continued to beat the people who had fallen and made a pile on the ground. He doesn\u2019t remember how he got up and left the mass of fallen people, he knows that at some point he lost his glasses but kept running. However, the situation did not calm down there. The policemen pushed them all against the wall of a nearby building and started hitting them with nightsticks.<\/p>

\u201cSo, we are leaving the one where we\u2019re suffocating, where the situation is chaotic, and we\u2019re met by the police who continue hitting us with nightsticks,\u201d he says.<\/p>

Albahari felt a couple of blows to his legs, despite having raised his hands. According to him, he was moving away from the policemen who were following them, hitting them the whole time.<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s so humiliating, like animals on a farm, like cattle that are being hit so they would pass through. They were literally just hitting us like that \u2018faster, faster, c\u2019mon, c\u2019mon\u2019,\u201d he recalls the clashes of the night between July 8 and 9.<\/p>

Unlike him, Ivan Cveti\u0107<\/strong> arrived at the protest a little later, around 9:30 p.m. He says he was not involved in the attacks on the police, but was rather observing the scene while avoiding the front rows. At some point, mounted police headed toward the group he was in with a friend, and so they moved to Ta\u0161majdan Park. They realized they should not stay there because the police would head toward them. They starting moving away from there, but the park was soon surrounded by police.<\/p>

\u201cA cordon, a really big one, headed from that left side, mounted police and Bulevar were on the right. We started running and then we saw there was a third cordon in position there, but they were just standing,\u201d Cveti\u0107 recalls.<\/p>

After that, in Cveti\u0107\u2019s words, tear gas was thrown all over the place and people started running. In those moments it was every man for himself. After he ran across the street, Cveti\u0107 found a place on the ground where he could jump in and curl up. However, policemen ran up to him instantly.<\/p>

\u201cA bunch of them came up to me, but as many as could manage in that space \u2013 that many hit me. I think three at most could hit me. After one hit me once or twice, a new one came over to do the same. I think about five or six of them must have taken turns [hitting me],\u201d says Cveti\u0107.<\/p>

He remembers that about halfway one of them could be heard shouting \u201cenough, enough.\u201d The second wave repeated that, too, but they kept going nonetheless. After he gathered his wits, he counted the marks left by the blows. The two on his head, he says, were not made by nightsticks but by kicks.<\/p>

\u201cLuckily, one of those kicks that was to the mouth, the lower lip, was not at full force, I guess. I started bleeding after that, but they didn\u2019t break my teeth.\u201d<\/p>

NGO: Unjustified Use of Force<\/h2>

A researcher of the Belgrade Center for Security Policy<\/em>, Sa\u0161a \u0110or\u0111evi\u0107<\/strong>, told CINS that the Law on Police obliges police officers to use force from the lightest to more severe and, in any case, the minimum force necessary, when necessary.<\/p>

He says that excessive use of force entails that a police officer has illegally, unfoundedly, disproportionately, not gradually and without respecting the dignity of human life and humaneness, used one of the means of force, of which there are thirteen \u2013 from physical force, through means of tying to firearms.<\/p>

\u201cUse of force is an extraordinary measure which must not be applied unfoundedly, but rather proportionately to the threat. Damage and injury must be to the smallest extent possible and only in a situation where a legitimate objective needs to be achieved,\u201d says \u0110or\u0111evi\u0107.<\/p>

He further says that during the use of force, police officers first and foremost need to protect human lives and cause as few injuries as possible. They are also obliged to provide, as soon as possible, medical assistance to any person who has been injured.<\/p>

Excessive use of force during these protests, according to \u0110or\u0111evi\u0107, should be investigated by the prosecutor\u2019s office, the Internal Control Sector of the Ministry of Interior<\/em>, the Ombudsperson<\/em> and the National Preventive Mechanism for prevention of torture<\/em>.<\/p>

\u201cAt best, the parliamentary Defense and Internal Affairs Committee should request an emergency report on police conduct during the protests. Furthermore, it is also important that the prosecutor\u2019s office investigate who had initiated the riots and attacked the policemen, why and how,\u201d he says.<\/p>

CINS tried to get information from the Ministry of Interior<\/em> as to whether procedure has been launched against some policemen for excessive use of force, but did not receive an answer by the time this article was published.<\/p>

The Ombudsperson<\/em>, on the other hand, on July 9 issued a statement that the police had not used excessive force, except in individual cases because of which his office had initiated the procedure of checking the legality of police actions.<\/p>

Misdemeanor Charges Against at Least 70 People<\/h2>

On suspicion that they had disturbed public order and peace, at least 70 citizens were arrested and prosecuted before misdemeanor courts \u2013 35 citizens in Belgrade and 35 in Novi Sad.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

According to representatives of the Belgrade Misdemeanor Court<\/em>, 11 citizens have been acquitted. Five people have been fined, whereas two who were unable to pay the 80,000 dinar fine agreed to a 60-day prison sentence. The others paid the fines. The remaining 19 persons gave statements, while proceedings will continue regularly, i.e. will not be shortened like in the other cases since there were no witnesses.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

In Novi Sad, 13 people have been fined, one of whom replaced the fine with a 50-day prison sentence. Proceedings against 16 individuals will be led in a regular period, five persons have been acquitted, whereas one person was immediately sent away due to having a fever, according to representatives of the Novi Sad Misdemeanor Court<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

The penalties for this misdemeanor include fines of between 10,000 and 150,000 dinars, 80 to 360 hours of community service or a prison sentence of between 30 and 60 days.<\/span><\/p>\r\n

 <\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Sanja Radivojevi\u0107<\/strong> of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights<\/em> says that many people who suffered blows from the police have contacted the NGO. Some of them were detained by the police, while others were not arrested.<\/p>

\u201cThey are mostly pointing out that they sustained minor injuries through the use of official batons by members of the police,\u201d she says.<\/p>

According to her, the Belgrade Center for Human Rights<\/em> is trying to help these people by providing legal aid and pressing charges. Charges will be pressed against unidentified persons, because the identity of the police officers cannot be determined.<\/p>

\u201cThey were wearing those uniforms of theirs and beating them (the demonstrators) in groups where it is actually impossible to determine who hit them and how,\u201d she adds.<\/p>

In Radivojevi\u0107\u2019s words, they have pressed 15 charges so far.<\/p>

When asked what they expect from those charges, she says that the Belgrade Center for Human Rights<\/em> is not too optimistic. She does not even think the identity of those unidentified individuals will be determined, let alone that they will be punished:<\/p>

\u201cEven when we do know the identities of police officers who have overstepped their authority, very often either a plea bargain is made or they are put on probation, therefore those are always the mildest sentences or some alternatives.\u201d<\/p>

Asked whether police conduct at these protests was more brutal than at some past ones, Radivojevi\u0107 says that the personal impression of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights<\/em> is that the tolerance limit of police officers has gotten lower.<\/p>

She adds that she believes that such police behavior is not regular, but rather that, unfortunately, some policemen have sullied the reputation of the uniform they wear.<\/p>

 <\/p>

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Although the July 9 protests in several Serbian cities passed in a predominantly peaceful atmosphere, the public is still disturbed by what was seen on the streets on July 7 and 8 \u2013 large quantities of tear gas, violence, brutal attacks by the police on demonstrators, even on those who posed no threat. While representatives of non-governmental organizations say that unauthorized use of force by the police is prohibited, some of the protesters have told CINS that police beat them even though they had not participated in the riots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1348,"featured_media":27292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,1583],"tags":[1861,1860,1862,1622],"class_list":["post-27291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-serbia","tag-belgrade-center-for-human-rights","tag-belgrade-center-for-security-policy","tag-police","tag-protest-en","ciTrackContent"],"acf":[],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/protest-u-beogradu.jpg","author_additional":[1120],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1348"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27294,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27291\/revisions\/27294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cins.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}