What has been happening in Kragujevac these past months is nothing short of a coordinated campaign of harassment, intimidation, and open discrimination against legally employed foreign workers. Behind the whistles, the shouting, the insults and yes, the disgraceful screams of “monkeys” hurled under Serbian flags stands a group of Serbs who have chosen hatred over humanity. These scenes don’t resemble citizen protests; they look like mobs driven by xenophobia and political manipulation.
The rallies, which are falsely described as “spontaneous,” are nothing of the sort. They appear carefully orchestrated in neighborhoods known as SNS voting strongholds exactly where the ruling party previously staged counter-protests. It takes no expert to understand what is happening: a distraction, a political weapon, and a deliberate stoking of fear. The victims? Innocent foreign workers who came legally to earn a living.
The hypocrisy is staggering
These protesters who pretend to defend “peace” and “safety” have reduced themselves to shouting mobs, attacking buildings where foreign nationals sleep, vandalizing fences, and spreading baseless rumors. And all of it is wrapped in the Serbian flag, as if national pride is now an excuse for discrimination and abuse.
The peak of cynicism comes in Vinogradi, where locals signed a petition demanding that the city remove foreign workers because “the windows look into their yards.” As if a window is a threat. As if people who fled hunger and poverty deserve to be treated as intruders because some residents feel “disturbed.” The same people who fled wars in the 90s were welcomed across the world with compassion—yet today, many in Kragujevac refuse to extend even basic decency.
Fueled by conspiracy theories and political games
The propaganda machine behind these gatherings is working at full capacity. Posters across the city warn that “foreigners are replacing Serbian workers,” echoing deranged population-replacement conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, SNS leaders conveniently blame “blockaders” and opposition activists, even though the organizers of these rallies are visibly their own loyalists.
Hypocrisy upon hypocrisy.
Violence encouraged by lies
The situation escalated after a wave of unverified—of course unverified—stories spread on social media claiming foreign workers attacked women and children. No evidence. No police confirmation. Nothing. Yet the hate spread like wildfire, because discrimination is always the easiest political tool.
Foreign workers now walk the streets of Kragujevac with lowered heads, terrified. They work in factories, pay taxes, follow the law yet they are shouted at, threatened, and publicly humiliated simply because they are “different.” Meanwhile, the same people who scream at them are the ones refusing jobs in three-shift industries.
Local authorities washing their hands
Officials insist that the “situation is under control.” They point out—correctly—that no crimes by foreign workers have been reported. But their words contradict the climate of hatred tolerated and even encouraged in their voter base.
A long tradition of rejecting ‘others’
Historians note that this hostility to newcomers is nothing new in Kragujevac. Those protesting today are often the same people whose families arrived here decades ago from other parts of Yugoslavia, themselves once treated as “outsiders.” The irony could not be more bitter.
Anti-fascist Kragujevac? Not anymore.
What is happening in Kragujevac is an insult to the legacy of a city that suffered under fascism. People who once prided themselves on tolerance are now chasing terrified foreign workers down streets while holding national flags. The nationalism is cheap; the discrimination is real; the shame is permanent.
The real tragedy
The loudest hatred today comes from the very neighborhoods that voted overwhelmingly for the ruling party—the same party that brought foreign labor into the country through business deals and factory contracts. Instead of holding their leaders accountable, protesters attack powerless workers who earn a living through exhausting physical labor.
Blaming the victims is always easier than demanding truth from those in power.
