Miloš Pavlović, Dean of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU), stated that eight students, associates, and faculty members from the institution have been detained. Some, he added, were arrested without any basis.
In the past 48 hours, eight of his colleagues from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU) have been arrested, Dean Miloš Pavlović said.
“Some of them were detained without a warrant, without explanation, and without legal grounds. All were released after questioning, which clearly shows that there was no reason for their detention in the first place. We believed it was our duty for you to hear all necessary and accurate information directly from us. Because our students, our colleagues, cannot be reduced to numbers, nor left to insinuations and manipulations,” he said.
Their community has become a target of organized and systemic intimidation, he added. “We are witnessing open repression, not only against the institutions and laws of our state,” he stated.
This, he said, is repression against freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and the right to peaceful assembly. “Not in an abstract space, but against concrete people, students and teachers, and against an institution that exists to preserve and develop these freedoms – the Faculty of Dramatic Arts. We have always stood against all forms of violence and for democratic, non-violent resolution of social conflicts. But what we are witnessing today from the highest state positions, through institutions and controlled media, is not a call for dialogue. It is targeted targeting, disciplining, and an attempt to suppress every critical voice,” Dean Pavlović said.
Call for Action
At a time when students are being arrested, professors are subjected to pressure, and their work is delegitimized, FDU is expected to act as if everything is fine, the dean said through tears.
“Any such simulation of normalcy today means denying reality. And the reality is extraordinary. Reality is daily arrests, insidious and incessant intimidation, the collapse of trust in institutions, and the creation of emotional insecurity and humiliation. Reality is that we no longer know if we will be detained for our opinions, for attending a gathering, or just because we are part of a school that thinks freely,” he emphasized.
FDU is under serious pressure, he added. “Our students feel unprotected. Our associates fear for their safety. Our professors wonder if their next class will be their last, not due to academic shortcomings, but due to insistence on academic integrity and ethics. All of this is happening while those who undermined the institutions are now trying to use them against us, to punish us, to silence us, to re-educate us. But the Faculty of Dramatic Arts is not and will not be a place of fear, but a space for free thought, creation, and responsibility. We stand for the right to resist, to question, to doubt. We stand for the right to freedom,” he underscored.
They demand an immediate end to the repression, an end to the targeting of the faculty and all its members, as well as a clear guarantee that freedom of expression, artistic activity, and academic criticism will not be criminalized.
“We owe special thanks to all legal representatives, who are providing legal aid to the arrested and detained completely solidarily, professionally, and pro bono,” he concluded.
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Source: N1, Foto: Vesna Lalić / Nova.rs