Following the announcement by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office that, during the preliminary investigation into the death of a student at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, evidence was obtained regarding the March 15 protest in which, as they stated, students had “carried out a simulation of the use of a sound cannon by state authorities,” the students reacted sharply.
The statement issued by the Students in Blockade is reproduced in full below:
“The latest attempt by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office to find evidence in student meetings for a pre-planned ‘sound cannon simulation’ represents yet another falsehood and a distraction from the essential question: what happened on March 15 and what caused the chaos among the gathered citizens.
The document cited by the Prosecutor’s Office was created two months before the March 15 protest, at a time when that gathering had not yet been planned. It was material from a meeting concerning the protest at Autokomanda, during which various security risks and possible forms of police intervention against peaceful citizens and students spending 24 hours at Autokomanda were discussed.
In that context, sound cannons, water cannons, tear gas, and other means of coercion were mentioned as potential risks. Considering scenarios of repression is solely evidence of a responsible approach to the safety of protest participants. That is what we did before every protest, unlike the competent authorities and the government.
It is particularly absurd to claim that mentioning possible reactions from European institutions or the consequences of a potential use of a sound cannon constitutes evidence of a conspiracy. On the contrary, it clearly shows that the sound cannon was viewed exclusively as an example of excessive force by state authorities, since it had been known since 2022 that the state possessed such prohibited weapons, and in the context of the possible political consequences of their use.
Instead of answering the questions citizens have been asking for more than a year, the Prosecutor’s Office is attempting to portray discussions about the possible use of coercive measures as evidence that such events were staged.
We remind the public that following the events of March 15, numerous inquiries were launched, citizens were questioned, and institutions themselves acknowledged that an unusual event occurred, causing mass panic, running, and the sudden dispersal of people in Kralja Milana Street, followed by health problems.
Students will not accept being declared guilty simply because, while preparing peaceful protests, they considered risks to which participants might be exposed. If discussing the possible use of force has become evidence of guilt, then the problem is far greater than a single set of meeting minutes.
The citizens of Serbia deserve the truth about the events of March 15, not another attempt to shift responsibility onto those who have been protesting peacefully and nonviolently for months,” the Students in Blockade said in their statement.
It should be recalled that during searches conducted as part of the preliminary investigation into the death of a student from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade, on March 27 this year, documentation from the plenums of several faculties was temporarily seized. According to the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office, among the documents found was a record of a meeting of the Students in Blockade organization’s Central Security Working Group (KRBG), held on January 22, 2025.
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According to prosecutors, one of the topics discussed at that meeting was the “sound cannon,” with participants allegedly stating that the use of a sound cannon would receive a “strong response from Brussels,” and that in China “the practice was to move out of the way when a sound cannon was spotted.”
“Participants in the meeting and other unidentified individuals are suspected of subsequently taking actions aimed at carrying out a simulation of the use of a ‘sound cannon’ by state authorities at the protest planned for March 15, 2025, in Belgrade, and of accusing state authorities of using a ‘sound cannon’ before both domestic and international audiences, with the goal of creating public panic and fear among citizens, and provoking unrest that would lead to a violent change of the constitutional order and endanger state security,” the Prosecutor’s Office stated.
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Source: Nova.rs; Foto: Printscreen N1