The perpetrators seem to be unknown, but the targets are very well known: students in rebellion, citizens, Rector Vladan Đokić. Some people have rolled up their sleeves themselves to cross hate messages, while the police do not give a voice
"Ustasha blockaders", "terrorist blockaders", "Rector Djokic the murderer", "thief rector" are some of the graffiti that have been covered in recent days on the facades of buildings in Belgrade and other cities in Serbia, writes Deutsche says.
They appeared after the students in the blockade started the action of pasting stickers that read "Students are winning". This was followed by a counter-campaign by supporters of the authorities, who wrote graffiti "Serbia is winning", but also hundreds of hateful inscriptions against the students in the blockade and the rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić.
These days, such messages can be seen every thirty meters, among others in Vasa Čarapića Street, near Republic Square, on the building of the Faculty of Chemistry near Student Square, on Zelena venc, in Takovska Street, in Kneza Miloša and on Slavija Square in Belgrade.
The distribution of stickers announcing that the students will win the elections, which Aleksandar Vučić announces for July or autumn this year, caused verbal and physical incidents in Kraljevo, where government supporters lit a torch at one point on Thursday evening (April 30).
The media reported that, while they were handing out stickers, members of the Rakovica Choir were attacked in Resnik on Wednesday evening, where a young man was beaten and then kidnapped. After the kidnappers released him, he was admitted to the VMA. The MUP has not announced anything about it so far.
MP Biljana Đorđević of the Green-Left Front (ZLF) recalls that some types of kidnappings have happened in Serbia before.
"Citizens who were mistreated by the police said that it happened to them that the police simply put them in their vehicles. In Novi Sad, students Mila Pajić and Doroteja Antić were kidnapped. Maybe at first it seemed like it was exaggerating when it was said that it was a type of kidnapping, because they were mostly plainclothes policemen," Đorđević told DW.
She adds that she believes that now it is a form "that is used strategically to intimidate citizens".
"At the same time, we don't know who exactly is doing it - criminals who don't answer to anyone or people who are plainclothes policemen. I think it's about abuse of institutions by the regime, and that against political opponents."
The KROKODIL association has been organizing actions to remove murals, such as the one with the inscription "When the army returns to Kosovo", or graffiti such as "Ratko Mladić is a hero", which have long since appeared on the walls of buildings in cities across Serbia.
That's why they took to the streets of Belgrade on Friday (May 1) and tried to somewhat clean the walls of the buildings from signs of intolerance towards students in the blockade and hate messages against Vladan Đokić.
"I think that until now we have not seen such a quantity and density in such a wide area of these pro-regime and vulgar and disgusting writings," writer Vladimir Arsenijević, who is the founder of KROKODIL, told DW.
"We decided to go out on the streets because that's what we're doing anyway - removing various graffiti and hateful, chauvinistic and warmongering murals," he adds.
He calls on citizens to do the same in their local communities.
"We tried to explain to them that it is neither complicated nor expensive and that it is a matter of civic responsibility to keep our public space neutral and with unwritten political messages in this crazy political war that is constantly being waged in our country."
Messages against Vladan Đokić and the students in the blockade were written, among other things, on the building of the Faculty of Chemistry and the School of Law and Business in Belgrade.
"We decided to start from the hot spot, and it seems to us that it is near the Faculty of Chemistry, the Student Park and the upper part of Dorćol. We had other locations in the plan, but when someone starts removing it, only then does he see how much there actually is. We removed hundreds of graffiti and scribbles from pedestrian crossings, sidewalks, facades, benches, fences, but that's not all," says Arsenijević.
The same action was organized by the Green-Left Front in Belgrade on Friday. Biljana Đorđević assesses that the massive writing of hate graffiti "raises tensions and does not correspond to the authorities' claims that they want dialogue in society."
Although he says that the "graffiti war" is not in itself a sign that elections will be called soon, Đorđević states that it is a response to the campaign started by students by distributing stickers.
"When they respond to the message 'Students are winning' - 'Serbia is winning', it turns out that students and citizens are not Serbia; that only they are Serbia, and the students are blockades, terrorists, Ustasha. Those are the messages we wanted to get across. There is so much that, once you start, there is no end," said the ZLF MP.
Arsenijević recalls the problematic legal framework according to which the responsibility for removing controversial graffiti is transferred to the tenants of buildings.
Five organizations, among them KROKODIL, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights and the Belgrade Center for Human Rights, recently wrote a letter of recommendation regarding the removal of graffiti and murals that promote hatred. In it, they insist on changing the regulations in that area.
"The perpetrators are never caught, and even when they are, it is a misdemeanor fine in the amount of 10.000 dinars. If it is paid within a month, you get a 50 percent discount. The essence, then, is in the upside-down system that enables such situations," says Arsenijević.
Since hateful graffiti flooded the facades of buildings in Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić called for "calming passions", and the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that it was working to identify the persons who wrote the problematic graffiti on the building of the Faculty of Chemistry. Will that investigation have a judicial epilogue?
"Various hate graffiti were written on the facades of buildings in Belgrade and other cities and no one reacted. Of course, this is additionally problematic because it is a university, therefore a public institution. I would like to believe that this time there will be a judicial epilogue, but honestly - I don't believe it," says Biljana Đorđević.
And Arsenijević is skeptical that the police investigation will result in the perpetrators being punished.
He recalls that the activists of KROKODIL had actions to remove graffiti and murals at night.
"At the same moment, the police, communal militia would appear, concerned citizens, football hooligans. On the other hand, we have seen the painting of murals so many times that our right wing, which is connected to the authorities, cares a lot about - let's say the one 'When the army returns to Kosovo'. We removed them, but they reconstruct them within 24 hours. This is done in broad daylight and nothing ever happens," concludes Vladimir Arsenijević.
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