Belgrade - With water cannons and brutal application of force, the Police in the night between Monday and Tuesday "dispersed" the seventy fifth protest gathering of the citizens which, because of the Police blockade of the column of marchers arriving from Novi Beograd [New Belgrade], was held on both sides of Brankov bridge instead of on Republic Square.
Columns of marchers gathered near the Vuk monument and on Slavija square, led by Zoran Djindjic and Vesna Pesic headed "to aid" demonstrators led by Vuk Draskovic. The latter column was cut off by the Police near the gas station in Novi Beograd. Both sides of the bridge and all nearby streets were full of very numerous police forces.
Several tens of thousands of Belgraders gathered on the old city side of the bridge and various public personalities were arriving and addressing gathered citizens from a jeep carrying loud speakers: Vida Ognjenovic, Milan St. Protic, Mirjana Karanovic, Predrag Ejdus...
All speakers called on the gathered citizens to stay calm and avoid reactions to provocations. It was said that the citizens would remain on the bridge until the Police withdrew. In the meantime Dindic and Draskovic had switched sides using another bridge, so that the leader of the Democratic Party was in Novi Beograd while Draskovic was in Brankova Street.
The Police intervention on both sides of the river was synchronized and started at half past midnight. When the policemen started to push the citizens back, Vesna Pesic asked the demonstrators to sit down. This interrupted the intervention for a moment. After some time, Draskovic asked the demonstrators to peacefully head for Republic Square. As soon as the demonstrators began to get up, the Police attacked them. At the same time water cannons had arrived from Pop-Lukina street and thereby many demonstrators were surrounded without a way out. The beating started, and Vesna Pesic was also hit by a baton.
One part of the demonstrators headed up the streets towards Karadordeva Street, where they were stopped by strong police forces. The escape towards Terazije Square thus continued in two directions - through Brankova Street and past the Zeleni Venac market.
At the same time on the Novi Beograd side of the bridge, police cordons quickly approached the citizens and started to push them back with shields, and a few kicks and baton blows. Zoran Dindic was with the demonstrators and he was walking back very slowly. Actually, he was pushed back by Police shields. He later told us that he was trying to give other demonstrators enough time to pull back.
The police approached in tight formation leaving very little hope that they would show mercy if someone slipped. The outrage of the people because of the intervention was enormous. The demonstrators were shouting "Ustashe, Ustashe!" [Croat pro-fascist militia responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Serbs during WWII], "Woof, woof", many swear words could be heard and a few bottles were thrown on the Police. The narrow space through which the demonstrators had to withdraw (the space between the two fences on the sides of the bridge) did not allow them to turn around or stop for a moment because of great danger that one would fall and be run over.
The tension was enormous, so that it seemed that any moment everything could turn into a fierce battle. The policemen appeared angry and tight from the moment they arrived to the bridge and remained in that state during the attack on the bridge. One of the policemen was almost hysterical while he was shouting at the cameraman who was taping the beating, at the moment when the pushing was almost over because the people had already left the bridge. "Turn that off, turn it off," screamed the policeman and then he pushed the cameraman.
Then, a sound of a baton blow could be heard near the cameraman. Some of the citizens were leaving the spot so quickly, while watching the policemen, that they hit lampposts and trees. Some of them were swearing and claiming to had seen the Police hitting the demonstrators.
When the demonstrators were chased off the bridge, one column of policemen headed out towards the crossroads fifty meters away where a group of people had gathered in the meantime. They were shouting and taunting policemen. Dindic stayed by the bridge and soon moved to the footpath so that there was no one apart from the police on the street.
The bridge was opened for traffic at midnight, a few moments after Dindic, surrounded by several collaborators and journalists headed over the bridge to the other, old city, side of the bridge.
Dindic was saying to the policemen he met on the way "Good night, see you tomorrow", while they appeared curious, as if they had not intervened a minute before. Looking at the fires set up on the bridge by the demonstrators before the intervention Dindic commented, "Look, we had just been getting ready to start a barbecue".
Unlike these few "humanitarian" encounters on the bridge, before the intervention the policemen appeared very cool and unapproachable. Dindic's attempt to start a conversation with them failed. "I talked to your colleagues on the other side of the bridge," he was trying unsuccessfully to start a conversation. Then he added: "It's real boring, isn't it?" but the nearest police officer stared silently at him and did not seem friendly at all.
Fifteen minutes before the intervention, probably the highest ranking Police officer on the bridge approached Dindic and told him that the people should get off the street. Soon a commotion in the second row of the policemen could be seen as they were getting closer to the head of the cordon. From the Brankov bridge, the police intervention moved to the strict center of the city, to Terazije Square, Republic Square, and then all of to the Dorcol district.
Somewhat after midnight, between 1,000 and 2,000 citizens blocked the traffic in Kolarceva Street and stopped several tens of vehicles. In the tense atmosphere, suspense was increased by the sirens and rotating lights of ambulances, which kept coming and going. At that time Terazije Square has already been full of policemen, buses, and jeeps. The Police had moved three water cannons there as well. It was difficult to give an exact estimate of the total number of policemen, but the impression of this journalist was that they were more numerous than on December 24 during the pro-government rally and a counter opposition rally. All along Terazije Square, where the citizens had been chased and beaten before midnight, the Police set up a cordon which prevented the citizens from stepping on the road, and cordons near hotel "Balkan" were blocking access to Srpski Vladari Street. Those citizens who got too close to the cordons were beaten up.
About thirty minutes after midnight, two platoons of policemen headed towards Kolarceva Street. Demonstrators greeted them with shouts "Ustashe, Ustashe!" and a few stones were thrown in the direction of the advancing policemen. Besides hitting the shields of the policemen, some of the stones ended up hitting the windows of public transportation vehicles. However, no windows were broken. As we heard from the demonstrators who managed to break through to Republic Square via Terzije Square and Knez Mihajlova Street, the windows were broken after the policemen in Kolarceva Street had been reinforced by another several hundred policemen. Witnesses claim that almost every policemen in that group managed to smash a windshield or at least slam a hood of one of the parked vehicles with a baton.
After the experience from Brankov Bridge, citizens stayed about 30 meters away from the Police cordon. Some of the policemen left towards Knez Mihajlova street and a cloud of tear gas soon arrived from that direction. Then, several hundreds of policemen slowly moved forward towards the Square. Citizens were shouting in protest and slowly pulling back. A few stones were thrown at the policemen, but they threw them back. At about 1am the police charged the demonstrators. They broke the crowd and continued to chase the retreating demonstrators along Vasina, Francuska, Knez Mihajlova, and Cika Ljubina Streets. The man who was caught and beaten by seven or eight policemen in front of the National Theater learnt that they had no good intentions. The demonstrators dispersed in groups of five to twenty people and were trying to escape through side streets. They flagged down passing cars and tried to get into buildings. Some of them failed to get away: at the corner of Jug-Bogdanova Street and Francuska Street the Police managed to catch a citizen. This journalist could not linger long enough to see what happened to him because immediately batons started flying in Jug-Bogdanova Street. Soon, that part of the city was "flooded" by blue uniforms. The fear of the citizens was exacerbated by the policemen who were jumping out of dark side streets.
In the meantime the Police occupied Vasina Street, and the last cordons took position in front of the Belgrade University Philosophy Department building. The situation somewhat calmed down, while police cars, jeeps, and Ambulances were driving around. It is not clear why the Police attacked several tens of young people who were quietly standing and observing the events in front of the Philosophy Department building. One of the young men tried to indicate to the policemen that he was not seeking trouble and finally lifted his arms. However, all that was in vain: eight policemen surrounded him and began to beat him. When the man fell on the ground they continued to kick and stomp on him. A physician who approached to offer assistance was brutally pushed away and the man was thrown in the police car and driven away. The same police car picked up the young man (he looked like a minor) who had been beaten nearby. There are at least hundred witnesses for this event. In a quick chase, two policemen broke into the Philosophy Department building, but the students escaped to the second floor. The policemen reached the staircase and then, swearing, ripping posters and hitting glass panels with their batons and shields, they left the building. After a five minute long action, the cordon gathered at the same spot - at the corner in front of the building. They lit cigarettes and stood and laughed about something.
In the meantime, between 1am and 1:30am, there was a police raid in the Dorcol district. As the citizens who made it to the Philosophy Department building told us, Dorcol was full of police and they were stopping passers by, asking for personal identification papers and searching for whistles and badges. There were no witnesses who could testify whether someone was arrested or beaten during the raid.
At 1:30am sharp, the Police pulled away from the Belgrade streets.
In the night between Sunday and Monday, the Police showed no mercy towards journalists. According to the information available to Nasa Borba, cameramen of Reutersand Associated Press news agencies, cameramen of CNN and BK TV stations, their assistants and journalists of BK TV, Beta and Blic were beaten by the Police.
Sergej Karazi, a Reuters cameraman was brutally beaten and hit on the head and back, while his camera was first smashed and then confiscated. Karazi was treated for his injuries and ended up with six stitches on his head. Reiner Hercher, an AP cameraman, was hit in the chest by a baton, while he was taping policemen who were beating Dindic. A CNN cameramen was at the same spot and his camera was hit by a baton in order to prevent him from taping the incident.
As many as four journalists, cameramen, and assistants working for the BK TV were beaten by the Police, in spite of the fact that all of them had clearly visible press badges. Cameraman Savo Ilic, assistant Vanja Lazic, and journalist Maja Vidakovic were stopped and beaten by the Police in Sremska Street. Ilic and Lazic tried to protect the camera with their bodies. However, after the beating, the policemen confiscated the camera, threw it on the ground and started jumping on it, claims the BK TV statement from yesterday. The camera was destroyed and three tapes with recorder material disappeared. Dejan Zaninovic, a BK TV assistant was stopped by the Police while trying to take a tape with recorded material to BK TV studios. He was stopped and searched by the Police. When he said that he worked for BK TV, one of the policemen hit him with a baton in the belly and took the tape away.
Marko Petrovic, Dusan Vukajlovic, journalists of Blic newspaper, and Predrag Vujic from Beta news agency were also beaten. All three of them had clearly displayed press badges, but it did not help them to avoid Police batons. Petrovic and Vujic were beaten at Terazije Square, while they were trying to get out of the way of a large group of policemen who were marching from Terazije Square towards Republic Square. Vukajlovic was beaten at the corner of Pop-Lukina and Gavrilo Princip Streets. A policeman hit him over his arm in order to get him to let go of his camera. Since he failed, he "treated" Vukajlovic with a few more blows in the back and the head.