During a recent protest against Aleksandar Vucic's visit to the town of Uzice, ruling Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, supporters assaulted and beat several citizens, while police stood by without intervening.
In Belgrade, a group of men attacked and injured an official observer from Serbia’s Anti-Corruption Agency, an independent state institution, while he was documenting campaign activities at a stand operated by the ruling party.
In Novi Sad, SNS supporters led by one of the party’s parliamentary candidates confronted activists and candidates of the opposition student-led electoral list and attempted to seize their banner.
In another incident, Belgrade’s Mayor Aleksandar Sapic was reported to have physically assaulted a female opposition councillor in the street, although he denied this. A week later, an N1 television journalist was attacked and threatened by a prominent SNS supporter while investigating potential electoral fraud. In the city of Nis, a journalist from an independent website was assaulted and injured while filming SNS campaign activities, with police reportedly refusing to intervene.
This week also saw revelations from SNS hired hand Momcilo Marjanovic, who told BIRN that he spent a decade providing ‘security’ for the ruling party, a role that involved buying votes and beating protesters.
These are not episodes scattered across years of political turmoil. They have all been reported in the space of a few weeks, as Serbia gets closer to parliamentary elections on October 25.