"Move please don't make a mess. You know we have to get you out."
This is how it happened on Saturday evening, after the protest on Vidovdan, in Resavski Street in Belgrade, a policeman addressed the demonstrators, as testified by the "Vremena" reporter.
The rebellious citizens persisted in their intention to stay on the streets, and the police at one point surrounded them on two sides of this street. A policeman then came over to talk and explain the situation, and the whole event seemed quite civil.
However, just a few hundred meters away and ten minutes later, another policeman, in civilian clothes, broke down:
"Everyone get out, hello," he said to the people who had taken refuge in one entrance to escape the police. His colleagues started pulling people out of the entrance by force, and the reporter was forbidden to film, even after she said she was filming for the media.
Again, 15 minutes later, near London, the police cordon stood in front of the people, and one of the crowd had a bloody head. Another team attacked from the surrounding street, in front of which the citizens fled. A few moments earlier, the relationship between the police and the rioters on that other street did not seem problematic at all.
The impression was completely different now. The police acted furiously, murderously even, they beat murderously, and in the eyes of the people he saw - primal fear.
Why such a difference in the behavior of law enforcement agencies? Is it just about the situation and the assessment, which of the demonstrators seems to be eager to create chaos? Or is it something else - maybe it's up to the policemen themselves?
"Brutal killers"
In the book "Museum of Living People", Dragoljub Jovanović made an effort to list all the people he was with on Goli Otok after the Informbiro resolution. He also described a kind of rule that was monstrously devised by the prison administrators.
A warm rabbit was waiting for the new inmates on Goli Otok, as soon as the ship dumped them on the rocky shore. Old inmates in two rows, with the obligation to hit each new fellow.
That is how Jovanović classified prisoners into those who fake blows in a hot rabbit, but also those who beat and those who maim. He called the latter "beaters-murderers". Mostly they wanted to flatter themselves like that, to show that they are the "better inmates" who beat the "gang".
One might think the same when watching the scenes of breaking up the blockades in Belgrade. Some policemen fake blows, talk to citizens, try to explain to them that they have to get them off the street, that they were ordered to do so, and call for order and peace.
Others hit with batons and shields, throw themselves at each other, even when the situation looks like it's going to escalate, but when it doesn't look like that at all. Like the one the "Vremena" reporter witnessed near London. People didn't resist, they didn't have weapons, they didn't rush in, they simply calmly tried to pass.
Krvnički and journalists - precisely because they are journalists
They went through a similar thing. media workers.
Organizer and assistant cameraman N1 Jovan Pavlović during the protest in Belgrade a member of the police hit with a baton while he was lying on the ground in a yellow press vest at the same time identifying as a journalist.
"In that crowd, I was pushed from behind, tripped and fell to the ground. The police cordon began to go around me, but the third or fourth gendarme in a row, although he had already passed me, took three or four steps back and while I was lying on the floor and introduced myself as a journalist, he gave me two blows with a baton in the area of the left shoulder," said Pavlović.
Danas journalist Vojin Radovanović tried to record an apprehension with his phone camera, and a member of the Gendarmerie in civilian clothes grabbed him by the arm and pushed him away, and when he started to walk away, he kicked him hard in the butt, ANEM reported.
Also, it is noted that the cameraman of the FoNet news agency, Darko Pavlović, was hit several times in the back and sprayed with tear gas, during the intervention of the Gendarmerie cordon at the intersection near London in the center of Belgrade.
"Standing to the side, leaning against a tree, Drekalović, wearing a yellow journalist's vest, was facing the cordon and filming the action of the Gendarmerie, when one of them hit him with a baton on the hand with which he was holding the camera, and then knocked him to the sidewalk with a shield," it is stated.
Psychological factors are also at play on the street. It is not easy for the armored police to endure either, and among them there are also pathological types who would like to stand out and be recommended by beating.
They only fight masked in the dark.
Maybe some of that can be explained by individual assessment, if it weren't for the hundreds of videos on social networks where you can see how those bloody heads came to be and who made them bloody.
Most of such recordings were made immediately after the protest, during the evening of June 28. Police with phantoms arrested and beat in the dark in Belgrade. However, in the following days, it turned out, the violence was becoming less frequent. It's as if they've been instructed not to, at least not during the day.
The appearance of masked police officers has been widely noticed in recent days, and the Srce movement announced that the provisions of the Law on Police were violated, which clearly stipulates that a police officer in uniform must have a visible badge with an official number, as well as a rank and an inscription with a surname.
"Until now, the police have been justifying that when they are in equipment to break up demonstrations, which includes wearing body armor, they are not able to comply with that legal provision. In this morning's case (June 30), there were no body armor, helmets, or equipment to break up demonstrations, but they wore classic, everyday uniforms, but with phantoms on their faces and no official insignia, except for the affixed police coat of arms on their short-sleeved shirts."
Who are you hiding from?
Since the law is equally valid for all citizens, including police officers, SRCE asked the Minister of the Interior Ivica Dačić and Police Director Dragan Vasiljević - "which of the elders is responsible for police officers acting like criminals, masked and improperly dressed, and what will be done about it."
"It is also noticeable that the police commanders, who led the actions, were without phantoms and with official insignia. The question for those policemen is, if they are policemen at all - who are they hiding from, are they afraid of the scorn of their relatives, neighbors, friends", they add from this movement.
