Opposition MPs Miroslav Aleksić and Radomir Lazović agreed tonight that the “Serbia against Violence” protests should not stop during the summer, because the energy of the people who have been protesting for two months needs to continue.
They also said that the government has been consistently ignoring the tragedies that happened in Belgrade in early May, as it does the citizens who participate in the protests. The head of the parliamentary group of the People’s Party, Miroslav Aleksić, assessed that the authorities ignoring the protesters and their demands is “a form of violence”.
“Ignoring is a form of violence and these are exactly the messages that the government communicates with the MPs and with the citizens of Serbia and in public appearances, absolutely unaware of what the political function entails,” said Aleksić. He also assessed that there are no institutions in Serbia that protect citizens, but that they have to do it themselves because the two tragedies did not wake up the government “but they certainly woke up the citizens”.
“They woke up students, mothers, fathers, miners, all the victims of this regime. The bubble of dissatisfaction that had been growing in Serbia for 11 years has finally burst. People stood up and that is what is most important at this moment. The silent majority stood up when they realized that everyone’s child could be in danger from now on,” he added.
Aleksić went on to say that it is clear to him that the government will not fulfil the protesters’ demands of the protest, but that everyone must fight together on the street, using every form of civil disobedience. “These demands were really not about only Vučić leaving, although they want to present it that way. Let’s eliminate the violence by bringing order to the televisions that use national broadcasting frequencies and let’s replace those people who bear objective responsibility”, Aleksic said.
The head of the Green-Left Club parliamentary group, Radomir Lazović, assessed that the government does not just ignore the opposition, but “ignores reality as well”. “As far as they (the government) are concerned, they don’t care about our society, they are just waiting for this to pass so they can continue their wheelings and dealings, to make money from other people’s misfortune (like TV stations Pink and Happy), to siphon money for their projects by which they are destroying nature and public assets,” he said.
He assessed that stopping the protest due to the holiday season and people leaving towns for vacation would not be good. “We have demonstrated that we can have massive protests. Some of the biggest protests happened in the last nine weeks… People in 30 towns and cities have been protesting, the whole of Serbia is on its feet,” Lazović said.
(Naslovi.net, Beta, 03.07.2023)
This post is also available in: Italiano