The executive director of “Civic Initiatives,” Maja Stojanović, was a guest on CNN where, in an interview with Christiane Amanpour, she spoke about student protests in Serbia, the current political situation and the role of civil society.
“This is the biggest protest ever. We are now witnessing people on the streets in more than 300-400 places in Serbia. This actually means that in every city, in every small village, in every municipality, people are rising up to fight against corruption and for the rule of law. What is actually different from previous protests is that these protests are led by young people. We have never had that in Serbia. I think it is rarely seen all over the world that young people from colleges, high school students, and even elementary school students actually take to the streets and demand accountability from the authorities,” said Stojanović, according to Civic Initiatives.
Speaking about the collapse of the canopy at the train station in Novi Sad when 15 people lost their lives, Stojanović said that it was a “strong trigger,” but also reminded that the authorities opened that same train station a few months before the tragedy “as the largest and most important most beautiful train station.”
“So, essentially, people automatically connected the corruption and what happened during the renovation of the train station with the death of people. The main slogan of the protests, in fact, from the beginning was corruption kills. So, it was completely different from the various protests we had because of rigged elections or protests for environmental protection or any other protest. It was led by young people. They use a completely different methodology,” she said.
Asked what the current situation says about the government and whether Serbian President Vučić and the government are trying to suppress the protests, Stojanović said that for more than a decade we have had a “captured state.”
“We didn’t have a separation of powers. It is complete control of the media, full control of the judiciary. Essentially, at this moment we have a government that is trying to stay in power, building on these undemocratic processes and the undemocratic way of governing for years. At this moment we have a huge attack on civil society. We have a big attack on demonstrators. We have a prosecutor’s office that is filing charges against civil society just because Donald Trump and Elon Musk said that USAID is a corrupt and criminal organization. So, essentially, we are facing, at this moment, enormous pressure on citizens. We have had, as Civic Initiatives, more than 2,000 cases of pressure on students, pressure on citizens, and also arrests of young people. And we currently have young people in prison. My family and I have been directly threatened by the president. This happens several times a week on national stations, so essentially all national stations and public services maintain this message that we are foreign agents, that we are the ones who organize the ‘Colored Revolution’ and that we are supported by governments from the outside. But there is no logic in that because the largest amount of money that USAID gave was actually given to the Government of Serbia, and civil society and non-governmental groups receive five to seven percent of that money.”
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On Christiane Amanpour’s statement that Donald Trump Jr. recently visited Serbia and that we know that the Trumps and son-in-law Jared Kushner have businesses there, Maja Stojanović commented on what Vučić gets from that connection with the Trumps:
“Well, he uses everything he can. He used Erdogan’s way of governing, he used Orban, and now he is very happy that such a big and important country actually sends the same messages. So, this is actually a message to the citizens of Serbia. When Trump’s son comes here, it is a message that family is important, that governments are run by family. So, it is a call and support for nepotism.
It is a call and support for corruption. And it is very difficult. You can imagine how much harder it is for us to fight from the inside with such messages that are sent from forces that were once democratic. We still hope, I will say that, that there is a lot of potential in the USA to remain democratic. But at this moment what is coming is a message from the USA, people connected with the USA, not only Trump’s son, but Giuliani was also recently there, and they are sending a message that is dangerous for democracy in Serbia but also for regional stability. Keep in mind that we are still a post-conflict region.”
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Source: Nova.rs, Photo: Printscreen YouTube / gradjanske inicijative