Election campaigns in Serbia are always dirty, but the current one raises the pain threshold. The participation of the Service in them - more or less visible - has happened before, but never like this time. Now they are an integral part of the progressive election campaign as teams of activists and technical support.
Incapable of protecting the security of citizens and the state, the Service's priority is dealing with political opponents of the government. Did Vučić know that Đorđe Miketić would receive a screenshot of himself in an extremely intimate and private relationship when he said that Zajedno na Pinko was a "human disgrace"? It doesn't matter. Something else is important. And that is that the system of blackmail and pressure is laid bare in this way. In this particular case, we are talking about an opposition politician. But there is no doubt that the same model is used within the progressive community, and especially towards their coalition partners.
Miketić did not agree to blackmail. He published a screenshot on Twitter from which it is clear that there is a recording, explained that a year and a half ago his apartment was broken into and his computer was stolen, he reported the theft to the police, is suing an unknown person... By the way, Miketić has not the slightest doubt that the BIA is behind everything .
When the Services are ready for such an attempt at personal defamation, why aren't they? Is there any law, service rules and moral norms that he will not break? And what's next? You don't need to be a supporter of the opposition or sign ProGlas so that a person's stomach turns. Dragan Bjelogrlić is right - we live in a zoo.
What should have been the disqualification of Miketić, returned to the regime like a boomerang. Dijana Hrkalović personally controls the damage. On his Twitter account, he claims that the President of Serbia was not referring to the video but to something else. But how does she know that? Did Vučić call to tell her? Or is she a member of the informal again groups like back then for the gangs of Salet Mutavo and Veljko Belivuk?
Hrkalović is only the controller on duty, she found herself in a situation. Đuka arrived as soon as he could, with the words: "I'll take over from here." BIA confirms how successful he was. In her statement, there are the words of Vladimir Đukanović from Twitter: Miketić should "publicly announce how, where and under what circumstances and by which person the recording of him and a certain person was made, as well as what the recording contains". The BIA claims that it has nothing to do with anything, but will "conduct an intensive investigation aimed at determining all the circumstances related to the video itself and the people on it."
Even those who wrote the statement do not believe in this. Why? Because of Jovanjica and Banjska, among other things. In the first case, a board of members of the police and the Service protect the drug business of Predrag Koluvija; in the second - the same civil servants keep Milan Radoičić like a little water in the palm of his hand despite his confession that he personally burned the entire official policy of Serbia in Kosovo.
After this, how can any responsible state official trust the information from the Services? Vučić, obviously, has no problem with that. To him, operations like the one in which Miketić is the victim are incomparably more important than the real fight against crime, corruption and the protection of real state interests. The reader knows very well how much he likes to brag about hints that he knows everything about everyone, but since it is a state secret delivered by the Service, he cannot speak publicly about his knowledge...
In this context, the attempt to blackmail Miketić in the current campaign has a special purpose. It is about intimidation of anyone who publicly and critically opposes the regime. And again, it's happened before, but never like this. Namely, opposition politicians, journalists of independent media and every public figure were clearly told that the price of their professional and political involvement will be paid by their families.
Creepy, isn't it? Especially knowing that passing security clearance for the last two BIA directors would be mission impossible; that its member Nikša Terzić took part in the severe beating of the football manager with an official pistol; that the Service was involved from top to bottom in the persecution of Slobodan Milenković and Dušan Mitic, the inspectors who discovered Jovanjica... And not to list any further - it is clear. And the citizens of Serbia still pay heavily for all this.
The service did not stand out only by trying to blackmail Miketić. In accordance with the Stalinist practice of "kompromat" (planting false information), she also targeted certain public figures such as our journalist Jelena Zorić, program director of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights Sofija Todorović, rock critic Pere Janjatović and, surely, some others. It is about the falsification of their signatures on certain election lists - so that we don't get into what they are, what they are like and who stands on them.
What did the Service want to achieve with this since only it could get the relevant personal data? First of all - if it passes, it passes - to give ammunition to the regime's tabloids so that after the elections (perhaps even before them) they call out the mentioned people for supporting the lists in question even though they claim otherwise in public. If it doesn't go through - again good. The members of the RIK and the GIK from the opposition will have their eyes blown out looking for all the forged and falsified signatures. Because if they did it to people known in the public, what about those who are not?
Finally, the conclusion. The only way for citizens to get out of the menagerie guarded and protected by the Service is for Serbia to stop and then start again. The bare safety of all citizens is at stake.
