"It's different to strike in the open like Diana Hrka i Milomir Jacimovic, but under controlled conditions", says the professor of sociology from Novi Sad for "Vreme". Marija Vasić which is its own hunger strike and thirst strike caused her and five other activists to be released from prison to house arrest, and then to defend themselves from freedom. They were accused of being Kanda terrorists who were planning a coup d'état.
"They took my blood every day and measured my blood pressure and other parameters," explains Vasić.
Unlike her, Diana Hrka has been on strike for the 12th day in a tent near the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, exposed to torture from Chacilenda, and Milomir Jaćimović and his son on the fourth day in front of the Banovina building in Novi Sad.
Retraumatization
She visited them to support them.
"I went to Jaćimović on the first day of their strike and later on the same day to Dijana Hrka. I didn't know that it would affect me so much. When I went to Jaćimović, I got upset while we were talking, I cried the whole time. I came to support them, and they comforted me in the end," says Vasić.
Strike Dijana Hrka and the members of the Jaćimović tribe retraumatized what she herself went through.
When she later went to visit Hrka, the scene in front of the Assembly was creepy for her.
"Lights out, a handful of people who came out to support Diana on one side, and on the other a crowd of those whistling and singing. Creepy, uncivilized atmosphere," says Vasić.
No one decides to take such a drastic step without being angry and desperate, he continues.
"Hrka and Jaćimović do not have any scientifically fantastic demands. They took away all means of work from the man and he really has nothing to live on anymore. He did nothing wrong and did not break any law by driving students. Dijana carries the weight of the responsibility of the entire society and she is someone who absolutely represents the greatest suffering in this society and her demands are both broad and deep and concern all of us", says Marija Vasić.
And in these moments, when support for Hrka and Jaćimović is sorely needed, it should be done by massive strikes in institutions and companies and boycotts.
"We have to stop the life in which we simulate that everything is normal. We provide them with support, but we go to work and in the evening we are interested in whether everyone is alive and what the situation is," says Vasić.
According to her, everything should stop because of them.
"Support is the only thing that can lead a hunger strike to the fulfillment of demands. Just as the prosecutor's offices were blocked when I started the strike, so we have to suspend our lives and support the lives of these people," says Marija Vasić.
Permanent health consequences
This activist of the Movement of Free Citizens (PSG) went on a hunger and thirst strike exactly six months ago, on May 13 - two months after she was arrested.
Five more PSG and STAV activists were then arrested under the same senseless charge.
Vasić was on a thirst strike for more than 50 hours. She broke it off when she was transferred from the prison on Klisa to the prison hospital of the Central Prison.
"On that third day, when they saw that I couldn't stand up and that I couldn't walk and that I could hardly speak, that my mouth was stuck, they placed me in a morgue and transferred me to the Central Prison. Those were the critical moments. There they brought me to consciousness and asked me if I would like a primula infusion. I agreed, but I continued my hunger strike," Vasić told "Vreme".
She remained on hunger strike until she was released from prison to house arrest, but even after that she could not eat for several days. Her strike lasted seven days and left lasting health consequences.
"I was on medication for a very long time. For one four months, I tried to solve some of the consequences with medication. Something worked, something remained as a chronic and permanent consequence."
Can hunger (and thirst) strikes be achieved?
Marija Vasić went on a hunger and thirst strike demanding the release of political prisoners. If not, PSG and STAV activists would probably still be in detention.
"I got myself and five other detainees out of the worst prison detention on Klisa after two months, because they would never let us go and we would probably be in detention there to this day if someone had not sacrificed themselves. I thought that I was the oldest and the only female and that I could withstand it," Vasić told "Vreme".
Her judgment was risky, but it turned out to be correct.
"Later I found out that my family didn't know where I was or what my condition was for days," she recalled.
How her children will bear her sacrifice is a fear that existed before she decided not to take water and food.
"They saw me that day while I was still perfectly fine and I explained to them what that meant, what my goal was and that I no longer had any way to fight against injustice and against the illegal third extension of our detention, but that I would enter the most rigorous and radical form of strike, which is a hunger and thirst strike."
Her younger son took her decision the hardest, but Maria did not change it.
