At 5 PM on Friday, November 8th, a train departed from Belgrade to Petrovaradin. Two activists, Mila Pajić and Doroteja Antić, were among the passengers.
They were en route to Novi Sad for an evening protest and blockade of the Varadin Bridge. The protest was one of many following the November 1st collapse of a newly renovated train station canopy, which killed 14 and severely injured three people. People once again demanded accountability.
When Doroteja and Mila arrived at the Petrovaradin station, they saw a large crowd and decided to call a taxi to avoid being late to the protest. Five minutes later, however, they were surrounded by six men who demanded that they come with them.
The men were in plain clothes, and it was not clear that they were police officers. When Pajić asked them to identify themselves, she says only one of them did so, but in a way that made it impossible for her to see what was written on his badge.
“He showed it very quickly. I couldn’t see if it was police, gendarmerie, military, or something else. It could have been anything—even fake.”
She refused to go with them and slowly began to step back. However, two of the men tasked with detaining her grabbed her arms and lifted her off the ground, carrying her to a black SUV with tinted windows.
“I didn’t know what was happening, and at that moment, I was scared,” Pajić says.
She started shouting, “Kidnapping!” and called for bystanders to record the incident. She was forced into the back seat of the vehicle.
Meanwhile, Doroteja decided not to resist. Nonetheless, one of the men grabbed her arm tightly and began dragging her toward a similar black SUV parked behind the one where Mila was being held. When she told them that their behavior was not acceptable, she says they apologized but justified it as “collateral damage” caused by her friend’s actions.
The guessing game
Just days earlier, more than 20,000 people gathered in Novi Sad to pay tribute to the victims. Later, chaos erupted in front of City Hall, where windows were smashed, cameras destroyed, and red paint splashed and drawn on the building.
That evening, police detained Relja Stanojević, a student. While two plainclothes officers were dragging him away, TV station N1 filmed the incident, during which Stanojević claimed the officers had assaulted his girlfriend and that he pushed one of them in response.
Relja’s lawyer, Živko Todorović, says he has been charged with assaulting a public official in the performance of their duty.
“One of the key issues here is whether the suspect could have been aware they were public officials.”
Former vice president of the Government of Vojvodina Goran Ješić came to Stanojević’s defense by pushing one of the two officers trying to detain him.
The plainclothes officers surrounded Ješić, who insisted that they show their badges. While one pulled out his badge, the other hid his face under a hood.
Ješić’s lawyer, Vladimir Beljanski, says Ješić was convinced they were thugs, not officials.
“The individuals detaining the young man looked exactly like the hooligans who were vandalizing City Hall and attacking citizens.”
Former police inspector Siniša Janković explained to CINS that police officers must identify themselves clearly.
“The police must make it unmistakably clear that they are police officers. They must say ‘police’ and show official identification.”
He added that the police officer must clarify which department they belong to, so the individual being detained knows whether they are being arrested by the military police, criminal police, or someone else. Additionally, they must inform the detainee of the exact station they are being taken to.
“The person being detained should have any doubt—they shouldn’t be wondering if they are being kidnapped by a gang. (…) If that much is not clear, they have a right to defend themselves.”
According to Janković, police officers are not permitted to hide their faces because the person they arrest has the right to file a complaint about their work. If their face is hidden, he will not be able to identify the person who detained him.
“Members of the police can be masked in certain situations when special police units are working – the gendarmerie and similar units – and they wear balaclavas”.
Milena Vasić from the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM) says that a plainclothes police officer must identify himself, although there were many cases in our public space when they did not do so.
“That is something that our police need to change, because you can find yourself in a situation where you have to defend yourself without actually knowing that you are facing an official.”
She adds that in some earlier proceedings, they approached the Internal Affairs sector of the Ministry of the Interior for this reason.
“We were told at the time that this was considered a minor offense.”
What is civil disobedience to you?
Neither Mila Pajić nor Doroteja Antić were initially sure who was taking them and where. Their phones were taken from them in the cars.
Pajić says that ten minutes later, the car stopped at the parking lot of the Security Information Agency (BIA) and that they were escorted through the back entrance of the building. She explains that the BIA building and the Secretariat of Internal Affairs (SUP) are connected by a single corridor. Based on the building she saw, she suspected that they brought her into the BIA.
“I assume that they took me to the BIA, because it was a new building. SUP is an old building.”
The office into which they brought Mila Pajić did not have the markings of any institution.
“White walls, a wooden table, and a wooden closet. It looked like a dentist’s office. I didn’t know where I was.”
The first thing she asked them was if she could get a lawyer. One of the two inspectors, as they introduced themselves to her, told her that there was no need for a lawyer because it was just a conversation. She wanted to call her mom, but they refused.
“Then I forbade them from taking my phone, because they don’t have a warrant. Then they told me that I could not use it, but that it could remain in my sight.”
On the other hand, Doroteja Antić was allowed to call her father, who later visited all the police stations in Novi Sad with his lawyer. However, they were informed at every one that they were not being detained anywhere.
Siniša Janković says that if someone requests a lawyer, the police must approve it.
“A citizen has the right to a lawyer for every activity. (…) The police must comply with a citizen’s request for a lawyer if they insist on one.”
According to him, the officers who denied that they were taken into custody did not act in accordance with the law.
“The official had to say: ‘Yes, they were brought in as citizens. They have not been detained, they are being spoken to and will be there for a maximum of 4 hours.”’
Neither the Ministry of Interior nor the BIA responded to CINS’s questions about whether Mila and Doroteja were taken into custody or interrogated, and if so, for what reason.
Both think the purpose of the interrogation was only to waste time so that they would not reach the protest.
Mila Pajić says that they asked her who is organizing the protests, and although she told them that she did not know, she feels that they repeated that question at least 11 times. After that, she was asked if she could guess who is organizing it, what ‘radicalization’ is to her, and what civil disobedience is.
Since they didn’t give her a lawyer, and she didn’t want to answer without a lawyer, they casually chatted – about books, theater, journalism.
During that time, Doroteja was questioned by other inspectors. They wanted to know more details about the protests, what she was planning to do after midnight, when the meeting on the bridge would end, etc.
“I think they just wanted to pass the time with the questioning, because after the first 15 minutes they realized that they had nothing more to ask me, but they had to keep me there on someone’s orders.”
Four hours later, they were both taken out the side door of the SUP and released.
Custody
It was ordered that Relja Stanojević be detained for 30 days, while in the case of Goran Ješić, the court initially rejected custody, but following the prosecutor’s appeal, 30-day custody was also ordered.
The decision was also changed in the trial against Novi Sad city councilor Miša Bačulov, who was initially ordered under house arrest for 30 days, only to have that decision overturned to custody. He is charged with the criminal offense of violent behavior because he emptied a cistern in front of City Hall that was originally thought to have contained feces. Later, Bačulov explained that the cistern contained water from the Zrenjanin waterworks.
His lawyer, Milan Alanović, assessed the original measure of house arrest as excessive for what Bačulov did.
“This was not cause for custody, but there was great and invisible pressure on the court, so this is a kind of compromise.”
The lawyers representing the other detainees also say that custody was excessive in these cases. That measure was also pronounced against activist Ivan Bjelić, who, along with four others, faces charges of violent behavior at a public meeting.
The prosecutor based the proposal for custody on the fact that there was public disturbance.
Lawyer Danka Segedinski, who represents one of the defendants, says that things appear to have gotten mixed up in this case.
“The public is upset about something other than someone taking part in a protest.”
Bjelić’s lawyer, Ivan Ninić, has told CINS that custody is excessive and that its purpose is to send a political message. According to him, the prosecutor’s order for the investigation accuses Bjelić of starting a fire in City Hall, even though this is not stated in the police’s criminal report.
The prosecution claims that the five are a synchronized group, although their lawyers claim that they do not know each other. Danijela Sedmakov, the lawyer of one of the suspects, says that he was taken into custody by persons in civilian clothing.
“They threw him on the floor and kicked him in the legs and head. (…) As his wife started screaming, they began to intimidate her and use abusive language.”
She explains that their actions caused him to feel unwell and that an ambulance was called to the scene.