Opposition Blasts Regime After Amnesty International Reports Gov’t Using Spyware Against Reporters, Activists

Belgrade, panorama (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

An Amnesty International report that the Serbian police and intelligence used spyware to track and surveil journalists and activists drew strong condemnation from the opposition, which said the report revealed the scale of repression in Serbia and the abuse of institutions.

Democratic Party president Srdjan Milivojevic said the report showed that "Serbia has become a parapolice state" and that "security services were a truncheon in the hands of 
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic" for dispatching anyone who threatens his autocracy and totalitarianism.

Freedom and Justice Party vice president Marinika Tepic said the report proved that the Serbian authorities used the Security and Information Agency and the police to spy on activists, journalists, non-governmental organizations and opposition politicians and revealed the "stunning scale of repression of the authoritarian regime."

Radomir Lazovic, co-president of the opposition Green-Left Front, said the report was proof that the regime was beginning to fragment and lacked support from the people, and that it proved claims of the phones of political undesirables in Serbia being tapped.

Get Going for Change spokesman Nikola Stankovic called for an urgent investigation and for establishing mechanisms to "prevent institutions from being abused for controlling and pressuring citizens," asking as essential the question of "who in the justice system approved such measures, on whose orders and on what basis."

The Free Citizens Movement demanded the immediate resignation of Vladimir Orlic, director of the Security and Information Agency, and the suspension of all involved in the alleged illegal use of digital technology to monitor citizens arrested during demonstrations.

Predrag Petrovic, a representative of the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, said that there were indications that what was described in the report did not involve just isolated cases, but hundreds, and showed that repression is increasing greatly in Serbia and is present in the digital sphere. He added that the police and Security and Information Agency were entitled to seize phones and search them, but only if they belonged to suspects and only with a written order from a judge or prosecutor. He noted that was not the case in the described incidents.

Florian Bieber, a professor at the University of Graz and an expert on the Balkans, said the problem was that democratic governments of European Union member countries had still not realized that the government in Serbia was undemocratic. Commenting on parts of the report stating that the Serbian police and intelligence services used forensic tools donated by Norway to extract data from mobile phones, Bieber said it was "incomprehensible" that the Norwegian government supported such a use of the software, because it had knowledge even in 2017 that the Serbian authorities did not always act democratically, that is, that abuses were possible.