Traffic blockade (BETAPHOTO/MILAN TIMOTIC)
The Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS) announced on July 17 that an analysis of social networks and the media had established 30 cases of excessive use of force by police since a St. Vitus Day protest on June 28 and the blockades that ensued after it.
In an article on its website, CINS quotes the accounts of people subjected to violence, saying that the majority of the incidents were filmed, but that it received no response from the Interior Ministry's internal control department as to whether proceedings for excessive use of force by police officers have been launched.
Sanja Radivojevic from the Belgrade Human Rights Center (BCLJP) told CINS that this NGO had so far filed 15 criminal charges and added that there would be more because people were still contacting it for help. She said that all of the citizens who were beaten were beaten by police whose identities are unknown and that they were in full riot gear and "without insignia and wore ski masks."
She said these cases were most often never solved, i.e. that the lack of a response from institutions, prosecutors and the Interior Ministry's Sector for Emergency Management frequently exceeded the statute of limitations making it impossible to establish the liability of those who used force.
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