{"id":19975,"date":"2026-03-30T12:41:53","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T11:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yihr.rs\/?p=19975"},"modified":"2026-03-30T13:38:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:38:41","slug":"violence-during-voting-day-on-local-elections-in-serbia-must-be-severely-punished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yihr.rs\/en\/violence-during-voting-day-on-local-elections-in-serbia-must-be-severely-punished\/","title":{"rendered":"Violence during voting day on local elections in Serbia must be severely punished"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One of the most serious cases happened in \u0160arbanovac, near Bor, where a group of masked attackers severely beat two Revolt portal journalists Lazar Dini\u0107 and Ivan Bjeli\u0107, photographer Zorica Popovi\u0107 and activist Aleksandar Kuli\u0107. The attackers sent death threats to Bjeli\u0107 and Popovi\u0107, calling Bjeli\u0107 insultingly &#8220;Usta\u0161a&#8221; and &#8220;Piculi\u0107&#8221; while their mobile phones and camera were stolen and destroyed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The violent group carried axes, and they knocked the journalists to the ground and kicked them, causing Dini\u0107, Bjelic and Kuli\u0107 to suffer severe head and face injuries, while Popovi\u0107 was hit several times in the stomach. Dini\u0107 was further abused by a group of attackers, forcing him to say &#8220;Aca is the president&#8221; while some of the attackers were filming him. Although the thugs moved around the area of \u200b\u200bthe attack while the police were taking statements from the victims, the police officers did not arrest the attackers despite the appeal of the injured journalists.<\/p>\n<p>In most municipalities where local elections were held, especially in Bor, Kula, Bajna Ba\u0161ta and Arandjelovac, the police put themselves at the service of street gangs by not acting, which deeply damaged the electoral process, bearing in mind that the violence happened in parallel and\/or most often due to the discovery of a large number of electoral irregularities by independent observers and the media. This information would not be known to the public without the reporting of a small number of independent media and impartial observers.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday seemed like a clash with citizens and young people who think differently and use their basic rights. Elections that take place in an atmosphere of fear and are accompanied by organized violence are not and cannot be free and especially not democratic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Youth Initiative for Human Rights demands from the relevant prosecutor&#8217;s offices the immediate prosecution of all attacks on journalists, election observers, political actors and citizens that occurred in several municipalities in Serbia, where local elections were held on March 29, 2026. Due to the failure of the police to prevent violence and arrest the perpetrators, we demand an urgent session of the Internal Affairs Committee of the National Assembly of Serbia, where the work of the police during the election day will be discussed.","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1479],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Violence during voting day on local elections in Serbia must be severely punished - YIHR.rs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/yihr.rs\/en\/violence-during-voting-day-on-local-elections-in-serbia-must-be-severely-punished\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Violence during voting day on local elections in Serbia must be severely punished - YIHR.rs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Youth Initiative for Human Rights demands from the relevant prosecutor&#039;s offices the immediate prosecution of all attacks on journalists, election observers, political actors and citizens that occurred in several municipalities in Serbia, where local elections were held on March 29, 2026. 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