Friday, 07 March 2025
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** Students versus the state in Serbia

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According to some analysts, the largest student-led demonstrations in Europe since 1968 are taking place today in Serbia. I almost missed that sentence in this story ([link removed]) from the Sunday Times last weekend given all of the other news vying for my attention. I’m glad I didn’t. The article itself is well worth reading – a story that pulls in Abu Dhabi developers and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Now dodgy planning regulations aren’t exactly the lane of Index. But protests and the crushing of dissent most firmly are. So here is what you need to know.

For months now, Serbia has been rocked by huge demonstrations throughout the country, led by students. What began in November 2024 as a movement demanding accountability for a tragic railway station accident in Novi Sad, which claimed 15 lives, has transformed into a broader call for transparency, fair elections, media freedom and an end to corruption.

The protests have resulted in tangible outcomes, such as the resignation of Prime Minister Miloš Vučević and charges against 13 individuals over the train disaster. Serbia is a country where “there is no such thing” as free speech, according to ([link removed]) Bosnian actor Fedja Stukan – who was deported in 2024 after speaking openly about his experiences in the 1990s war. The country’s ruling party has been accused of “a textbook process of state capture ([link removed]) ” and the protests have, unsurprisingly, been marked by serious violations to free speech.

Journalists covering them have faced harassment described as ([link removed]) “escalating” and “systematic”. These attacks have included death threats against journalists like Ana Lalić Hegediš, and physical assaults, such as the forced removal of reporters from Novi Sad City Hall in January 2025. Additionally, NGOs critical of the government have been raided by Serbian police.

The students driving the protests have been careful to maintain their distance from political parties from the get-go, which they must have felt vindicated by this week – dramatic scenes emerged from parliament when opposition members launched a smoke bomb and flare protest, leading to injuries and damage. This has only added ammunition to government claims that the protests are part of a “colour revolution”, and that NGOs are foreign-funded agents destabilising the country. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, clipping scenes from parliament, was quick to support this narrative on X.

Expect more dramatic events from Serbia in the coming weeks. Sources on the ground tell me an extra big strike is planned for today and another for 15 March. And with that, be on guard – if history tells us anything, when it’s students versus state, it’s rare that the former win.

Jemimah Steinfeld

CEO, Index on Censorship


** More from Index
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**
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This World Book Day, let’s fight for the freedom to read ([link removed])

The annual celebration has taken on a new meaning following an Index investigation ([link removed])

Iran’s silenced musicians ([link removed])

The Country’s leadership is systemically opposed to musical free expression ([link removed])

Hollywood: the Pentagon’s secret weapon ([link removed])

The Department of Defense’s continuing influence on the movie business ([link removed])

Bahrain must immediately free detained human rights defender Ali AlHajee ([link removed])

Human rights organisations call for his immediate release ([link removed])

The existential threat to international aid and consular assistance ([link removed])

As the UK models the USA's approach to aid cuts, journalists and political prisoners face peril ([link removed])

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** Confronting political pressure, disinformation and the erosion of media independence
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Index on Censorship, alongside partners at the Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and Safety of Journalists, launches its annual report: Europe Press Freedom Report 2024: Confronting Political Pressure, Disinformation, and the Erosion of Media Independence.
READ THE REPORT ([link removed])


** From elsewhere
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** >> SCOTLAND: ([link removed]) Government announces launch of consultation on SLAPPs ([link removed])
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** >> IRAN: ([link removed]) Singer Mehdi Yarrahi given 74 lashes over protest song ([link removed])
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** >> UK: ([link removed]) Hong Kong activists' neighbours “bribed” to turn them in ([link removed])
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** >> USA: ([link removed]) Art museum cancels two exhibitions featuring Black and LGBTQ+ art ([link removed])
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** >> TECH: ([link removed]) Apple launches legal challenge to UK “back door” order on encryption ([link removed])
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** Flashback
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International Women’s Day: Afghan lawyers targeted ([link removed])

by Ruth Green ([link removed])

Index on Censorship, volume 53, issue 4 ([link removed])

“I think most of the girls believed this will be temporary and never imagined they would experience what their mothers had experienced.”

After three years of Taliban rule, nobody really believed women could be erased further from public life in Afghanistan. Then in August 2024, the Taliban’s “vice and virtue” laws banned women from speaking, singing or showing their faces in public. If women break the rules, they – or their male relatives – face imprisonment. Ahead of International Women’s Day tomorrow, we look back on the powerful testimonies shared by Afghan female lawyers working to defy these bans in and outside Afghanistan. Read more here ([link removed]) .



** Support our work
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The world is becoming more authoritarian and our work supporting women in Afghanistan and promoting freedom of expression in countries such as Serbia, Iran and Hong Kong has never been more important.

By supporting Index on Censorship today, you can help us in our work with censored artists, jailed musicians, journalists under threat and dissidents facing torture and worse.

Please donate today ([link removed])

Photos by: AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic/Alamy: Ruby/Alamy

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