The Serbian Dveri Movement today condemned the court’s decision to detain for up to 30 days seven individuals arrested during a highway blockade in Užice. The individuals are suspected of attacking an official. Dveri has demanded their immediate release, urging authorities to act in accordance with the law, “and not by the dictate of Vučić’s corrupt regime.”
“This decision represents yet another brutal attack on freedom of assembly and expression, as well as a clear indicator of the regime’s increasingly aggressive crackdown on dissenters. Once again, it proves true that dictatorial regimes become more repressive as their end approaches,” the statement reads.
According to Dveri, the arrested citizens did nothing more than exercise their constitutional right to “protest against injustice, violence, and lawlessness that the regime is carrying out against its own people.”
“Instead of state institutions dealing with crime, corruption, and real threats to security, the regime uses the judiciary as a tool to crack down on citizens,” the statement added, assessing that the detention for “alleged criminal offenses in the context of protests represents a classic example of political persecution.”