The main impression of the protest in Belgrade on the water it was on Wednesday evening that the participants defeated the thugs of the Serbian Progressive Party. Reason - police was finally doing her job.
There were 100-150 participants of the protest against about seventy progressive "spontaneous drivers" who happened to be there, and all of them "accidentally" with masks on their faces, surgical or those from cartoons with characters from cartoons like "Spiderman". This time, the government did not send municipal presidents and officials, but "green beans".
But this evening, the plainclothes police also gathered in significant numbers. They were not only from the Belgrade Department for Public Order and Peace, but from all other organizational units, such as the Criminal Police Directorate, including those from the MUP Directorate. Security covered, everyone's every step is monitored. Those people played a key role in preventing a conflict like last week, because they targeted thugs from the SNS phalanx and sent them to pretend to be "stopped drivers" who were supposedly on their way home from work, or to "drive a child somewhere". And in the cars that came to the traffic lights from the direction of "Kule Beograd", where the first clashes took place, there were two or three people in the cars, with hoods and masks on their faces, who "spontaneously" came out to fight with the participants of the protest.
They had the "bad luck" that the organizers of the protest also "smartened up", so they hired people who are in good physical condition, ready to repel the attack, as security guards. They were not, as before at the protests for the defense of the bridge, young, inexperienced boys and girls, these were ready to fight back and that happened, without much use of force.
When the first batterer who attacked physically received a "portion" of pepper spray in the face (a means permitted by law when someone physically attacks you), the SNS attackers retreated and sent one of their own, who was in a strange psychophysical state, to run around, cursing and insults, and that lasted about fifteen minutes, without anyone throwing a single blow at him.
All of this, of course, was recorded by the Informer television camera, "thirsty for the shedding of Serbian blood", which was guarded by plainclothes policemen, although no one attacked Dragan J. Vučićević's team, because they did not have that sponge with the logo on the microphone.
Plainclothes police action
Interestingly, that intersection of Woodrow Wilson and Nikolay Krasnov has four directions, but the SNS beaters started from only one direction. There were 40-50 of them then. And then, after an hour of blockade, about twenty more of them come out of the "Belgrade on the Water" construction site, all masked, and join those who were already standing in their "spontaneously stopped" vehicles. Just when everyone thought they were going to attack the participants of the protest, plainclothes police enter the scene - they single out and arrest the leaders, those who are older, they are recognized by that, and take them somewhere, using police methods. Among them, five or six, and the one with the "phantom" mask who ran into the security of the protest. These younger ones remain taken aback - a typical fan syndrome, the rest without a leader. Plainclothes police are everywhere on the side, and then they receive an order from some center to "pick up". About twenty of them sit in six cars and leave, in the opposite direction. There is nothing left of swearing and threats to the participants of the protest.
When that didn't work, the "hybrid war" of the Informer is launched, someone attacks the journalist while she "spontaneously" takes the statement of the "absorbed" assailant. Protest security surrounds her, defends her from attacks and asks the participants not to touch her. That "citizen" who allegedly hurried home has time to make a statement. What the Informer reporter reported, who will know, but she probably didn't say that security protected the protest.
The bright spot of the protest, when all is said and done, is the behavior of the police, who for the first time detained SNS provocateurs, in front of a cameraman and cameras. Even if it was fake, and it's unlikely, good move. Whether by order of Vučić and Minister Ivica Dačić, or based on compliance with regulations, because the meeting was duly registered, is less important - SNS beaters have been shown that they are not untouchable as they were three or four years ago until today.
And the opposition also learned a lesson - there are no Gandhian methods. Video recordings and photos, where each of those bullies can be recognized by relatives and the neighborhood, are a special gain.
