After KRIK revealed that the Association of Serbs in Austria, which is close to the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), had organized the registration of people to vote in Vienna and recruited them to vote for Aleksandar Vučić, Marko Stojadinović, a law student in Vienna, filed complaints with Austrian authorities. He asked the prosecution service, police and security services to investigate suspicions of illegal political organizing, pressure on voters and misuse of their personal data.
Audio and video recordings made by Serbian citizens in Vienna and published by KRIK showed how voter registration in the city was being manipulated: the Association of Serbs in Austria, which is close to the SNS, illegally registered citizens for the elections and recruited them to vote for Aleksandar Vučić, offering gifts and SNS political materials. As the recordings show and reveal, the well-known Serbian bakery “Pekarica” was also involved in the process, directing people to the association.
KRIK journalists on the ground in Vienna also confirmed these election-related manipulations. They spoke with association representatives Andrej Leskovac and Željko Vojnović, who denied registering voters despite the evidence, but made no secret of their support for Vučić. On several occasions, the two insulted KRIK’s female journalists and threatened them.
After KRIK published the story, Marko Stojadinović, a law student in Vienna, reported the case to Austrian authorities. He asked the police, prosecution service, security service and Data Protection Authority to investigate allegations of illegal political organizing, pressure on voters, intimidation of female journalists and unauthorized collection of personal data.
“The individuals reported are collecting officially completed applications from Serbian citizens to change their voting location so they can vote at the Serbian Embassy in Vienna. However, acceptance of these applications is conditional on political questioning: ‘Who are you voting for?’ There is serious suspicion that official applications from voters critical of the government are systematically concealed, withheld or destroyed in order to prevent them from participating in the elections. This is consistent with accounts from people living in Vienna whose properly submitted applications have disappeared,” Stojadinović stated in his complaint to the prosecution service.
He also asked the prosecution service to investigate the threats made against the journalists.
“When KRIK’s female journalists entered the premises, Leskovac confronted them with surveillance camera footage and issued a veiled threat that is unmistakable in a criminal context, in an attempt to force them to stop their investigation. He literally said: ‘All we care about is that you stay alive and well,’” the complaint states.
In a submission to the Austrian police and security service, Stojadinović also pointed to the misuse of personal data.
“Passports, identity cards and Serbian citizens’ unique personal identification numbers (JMBG) are being photocopied and scanned on the premises. This information, together with telephone numbers, is entered into party databases. In addition, citizens are actively encouraged to bring the personal documents and information of other people who are not present in order to register them. These activities are visible in KRIK’s video recordings,” the complaint filed with the police states.
He also asked the Austrian Data Protection Authority to inspect the association’s premises, prohibit the unlawful processing of personal data and ensure that the disputed databases created by the association were deleted.
As a reminder, the Serbian Embassy in Vienna did not respond to KRIK journalists’ questions about its relationship with the association and its representatives, or whether and on what legal basis it had allowed voter registration, given that the law stipulates that only the embassy may carry out the registration.
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Source: KRIK Foto: ATA Images/Ministarstvo spoljnih poslova
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