Association "To be known!" announced that as part of the action "Pride Caravan" organize protests in six smaller cities, including Vranje, where the meeting is scheduled for Saturday, July 18. After the announcement, threats of violence were sent to the organizers, but also to the editorial office of the "Slobodna reč" portal, which reported on the event.
The Federation of Free Trade Unions of Serbia for the South of Serbia, whose trustee Slađan Ristić, threatened physical violence from his Facebook profile. to journalists portal "Slobodna reč" and announced for the same day a counter rally "for family and traditional values". Ristić stated for the "Vreme" portal that he wrote the threatening comment in an affect, while for the meeting whose date has been changed several times, he says that it may not even take place, because he will be in Belgrade that day.
"If you understand me as the host, I wrote that comment out of anger. No one has the right to endanger anyone's safety or beat anyone. I simply do not support the Pride. I want to walk with other hosts and my grandchildren. I have been leading strikes for thirty-five years and have never caused a single incident. Everyone has the right to walk where they want. I am currently busy with other things and I am going to the Ministry, and on Saturday I will be in Belgrade with the president, so we will see if the rally will be held at all," says Ristic.
He says that he "doesn't mind if both walks are held on the same day" and believes that the safety of the participants of the Pride Caravan will not be jeopardized.
The trusteeship of the Federation of Free Trade Unions of Serbia for southern Serbia invited representatives of local institutions, cultural and educational institutions, trade unions, citizens' associations, "all Serbian patriotic political parties" to support the "Family Walk" with their presence and "show that the issues of preserving family, tradition and national identity can and must be above daily political divisions". As they point out, they sent a special invitation to the Serbian Orthodox Church and clergy.
Ristic promised a beating
On the Facebook page of the "Slobodna reč" portal, under the text "The announcement of the 'pride' caravan in Vranje exposed extreme homophobia", the user of the profile Slađan Ristić wrote: "Listen, you who write this and those who want pederasty, don't try to go to Vranje, those stupid bastards, you will get a beating, I promise you", which is why the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS) reacted and condemned the threats sent to the "Free Speech" editorial office, and ANEM, UNS and other journalistic associations also responded.
From the "Slobodna reč" editorial office, they state that the identity, previous, current and future actions of the users of the Facebook profile from which explicit threats of physical violence were sent to them are being dealt with by the competent prosecutor's offices and security authorities.
"So far, we have received timely feedback from the Prosecutor's Office for High-Tech Crime, which is acting on the report of NUNS. We expect the authorities to unequivocally remind the public by their actions that journalists must not be exposed to verbal and physical violence because they report on events and social phenomena that part of the public or individuals do not approve of," the newsroom said.
Questionable moral credibility
From the "Da se zna" Association, they ask, "what kind of values does a man who threatens physical violence talk about" and believe that "the goal of the counter-walk is not to protect any values, but an attempt to politically rehabilitate and repair the damaged reputation of a man who often worked against the interests of workers."
"Just as the fight for workers' rights served as a mask for him for years, while his actions often worked against the interests of workers, so today behind the story of 'family' and 'traditional values' he tries to hide his own questionable moral credibility and the disappointment he caused among the people of Vranje with his political turn. We hope that the citizens of Vranje will not fall for this hoax in the form of a so-called 'family walk,'" the association said.
The representative of the Federation of Free Trade Unions, Nebojša Aleksić, issued a statement on his Facebook profile, in which he points out that the Federation of Free Trade Unions of Serbia strongly condemns the way in which NUNS acted towards trustee Slađan Ristic, considering that this association "violated the presumption of innocence" by publishing his full name and qualifying his action as a criminal offense before any court decision.
NUNS points out that at no time did they reveal the identity of the person who sent the threatening messages to the editorial office of "Slobodna reč" and that the announcement stated from which profile the message was sent.
"The person behind that profile said it in a public space, the name of the profile is publicly available information, and the person behind that profile had to take care of what he wrote and was not allowed to send threats. After the writing of the person behind that profile, the journalists of this media felt threatened. A criminal complaint has been filed, and further actions and further identification will be carried out by the prosecutor's office," the NUNS state.
Decentralization of Belgrade Pride
From the association "To be known!" they emphasize that it is important for them to work on the decentralization of Belgrade Pride and to send a message to LGBT+ people from smaller towns that they know how difficult it can be when you are an LGBT+ person in a small town, that they have not forgotten them and that they are there for them.
"It is important to us that the LGBT+ flag, even if only briefly and symbolically, flies in some of the most conservative areas in our country. Last year, we received messages from every city, even from those where no local LGBT+ person joined us, about how important our arrival was to them and how much it meant to them that we came to their city, even if they were not allowed to stand with us. This convinced us that the action makes sense and communicates with LGBT+ people from smaller towns", they state and point out that LGBT+ people are an integral and inseparable part of this society.
A queer person from Vranje who openly lives her identity, but for security reasons and the current situation in the city does not want her name and surname to be given, says that those who threaten should "think about how far within their families they should look in order to find at least one LGBT+ person". He believes that holding Pride meetings in smaller communities is important and that getting to know the problems of the LGBT+ community is a matter of information and education.
"Go to a workshop and listen to the experiences of members of different families to see how different they are from yours. I don't understand people who get up with the intention of ruining someone else's day," he says.
To unite media workers
The editor of the "InfoVranjska" portal, Mihajlo Stojković, believes that at this moment it is particularly important for media workers to unite and condemn this type of attack on colleagues.
"We are witnessing that today it is possible to write a comment that directly calls for violence, and no one is held accountable for it. We remind you, in 2025 alone, we witnessed several dozens of such attacks on media workers, and to this day there are no people responsible. The situation in which media workers are at the premises is catastrophic, and reporting on topics such as the 'Pride Caravan' that will be held in Vranje, only brings everything to the surface," Stojković points out.
Let's remember, the association "To be known!" the first time was in Vranje in 2019 as part of the same action, which passed without incident.
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