{"id":257887,"date":"2025-03-13T00:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T00:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/emboldened-by-trump-serbias-leader-cracks-down-on-activist-groups\/"},"modified":"2025-03-13T00:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T00:00:08","slug":"emboldened-by-trump-serbias-leader-cracks-down-on-activist-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/13\/emboldened-by-trump-serbias-leader-cracks-down-on-activist-groups\/","title":{"rendered":"Emboldened by Trump, Serbia\u2019s Leader Cracks Down on Activist Groups"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/10\/multimedia\/xxint-serbia-usaid-01-zpqg\/xxint-serbia-usaid-01-zpqg-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Emboldened by Trump, Serbia\u2019s Leader Cracks Down on Activist Groups\" title=\"Emboldened by Trump, Serbia\u2019s Leader Cracks Down on Activist Groups\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Unable to calm student-led protests that just kept growing, Serbia\u2019s strongman leader, Aleksandar Vucic, reached for some tried-and-tested scapegoats, unleashing his media attack dogs on foreign-financed groups that have nettled him for years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But what started as a familiar ritual of intimidation against groups that document issues like corruption, human rights abuses and electoral fraud \u2014 and which Mr. Vucic blames for the protests \u2014 has recently taken an unusual and menacing turn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Encouraged by the Trump administration\u2019s assault on the American agency U.S.A.I.D., Serbian authorities on Feb. 25 sent dozens of police officers, many of them armed, to raid the offices of four nongovernmental organizations. They made the raids without warrants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One organization, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/crta.rs\/en\/about-us\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability,<\/a> said it was raided and that officers carted away copies of 8,500 pages of documents. Another target, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gradjanske.org\/en\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Civic Initiatives,<\/a> said it surrendered 1,300 pages and thumb drives containing confidential personal information about its staff and finances.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Both had received a small part of their financing from U.S.A.I.D., as did a third group. The fourth group did not receive aid from the U.S. agency.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The government justified the action by referring to the Trump administration\u2019s dismantling of the American aid agency and its denunciation by Elon Musk as a \u201ccriminal organization.\u201d That, said Nenad Stefanovic, the anti-corruption state prosecutor who ordered the raids, raised concern that recipients of American grants were involved in money laundering since they had used funds tainted by what Mr. Musk said was criminal activity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He said Serbia had requested assistance from the U.S. Justice Department. The Justice Department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment. On Tuesday night, President Vucic posted a picture of him meeting Donald Trump Jr., the U.S. president\u2019s son, in Belgrade.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey are just using what Trump is doing in America against all the people they want to frighten here in Serbia,\u201d said Maja Stojanovic, the executive director of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gradjanske.org\/en\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Civic Initiatives<\/a>. She said her organization, which has provided legal aid to detained student protesters, used to get around 10 percent of its funding from U.S.A.I.D.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">President Vucic, she said, \u201csees the most powerful country in the world acting like this and has decided he can get rid of people here he doesn\u2019t like.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When a Serbian journalist recently tried to ask Mr. Vucic about reports <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.occrp.org\/en\/news\/krik-serbian-presidents-son-again-in-company-of-mafia-suspects\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">linking his son to organized crime groups<\/a>, the president responded by accusing the reporter of working for \u201ccriminal organizations.\u201d He asked her: \u201cHow much money have you received from U.S.A.I.D.?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Serbia figured prominently in the White House\u2019s explanation of why it was shutting down foreign aid, with Mr. Trump\u2019s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, citing $1.5 million that was granted to advance diversity in Serbian workplaces as a prime example of the \u201cinsane priorities\u201d of U.S.A.I.D.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The description of a 2022 grant in Serbia was accurate, but the L.G.B.T.Q. activist group that received the money, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usaspending.gov\/search\/?hash=ea90599bddf4b351cab3f3b4fff45ef3\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Grupa Izadji<\/a>, was not among the targets of the recent raids.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Also left alone have been the biggest beneficiaries of American aid money, more than 90 percent of which has gone to government and state-affiliated institutions, including the national Parliament. After Mr. Musk branded U.S.A.I.D. a criminal enterprise, Parliament quickly scrubbed the aid agency\u2019s logo from the home page of its website.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Its speaker, a Vucic loyalist and former prime minister, Ana Brnabic, who worked for years on projects financed by American aid, joined in assailing U.S.A.I.D. and its beneficiaries in Serbia as a threat to national security and sovereignty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Following the 2000 downfall of Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia\u2019s authoritarian leader during a series of wars with its neighbors in the 1990s, U.S.A.I.D. financed projects that it hoped would fortify the country\u2019s weak democratic institutions, judicial system and civil society.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The targets for Serbia\u2019s Trump-enabled crackdown have all been private organizations that the government accuses of orchestrating student-led protests.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The protests, which have spread across the country, reaching into towns that in the past voted heavily for Mr. Vucic, began in November after 15 people were killed by the collapse of a concrete canopy at a railway station. The students and opposition politicians \u2014 who protested in dramatic fashion last week by setting off flares and smoke bombs in Parliament \u2014 blamed the tragedy on shoddy work by contractors tied to corrupt officials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Playing off nationalist sentiments, the government initially blamed the unrest on money and activists from neighboring Croatia, Serbia\u2019s bitter enemy during the Balkan wars in the 1990s. In January, five Croats working for nongovernmental groups were detained in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, and expelled \u201cfor reasons of state security\u201d related to the protests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But Croatia has since faded as a culprit, replaced by U.S.A.I.D. and Serbian groups it has helped fund.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The recent raids on the four nongovernmental groups and threats of criminal prosecution have sent shivers through Serbia\u2019s small but vibrant nonprofit sector. They have also highlighted how the Trump administration\u2019s crusade against the \u201cdeep state\u201d has roiled not only Washington but distant lands where authoritarian governments have long bridled at constraints on their powers by groups they don\u2019t control.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere used to be red lines beyond which Vucic would not go,\u201d said the Ivan Djuric, an analyst at the Centre for Research, Transparency and Accountability, one of the raided organizations. \u201cBut when the U.S. government started demonizing U.S.A.I.D., Vucic decided he can do whatever he wants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For Mr. Vucic, he said, the Trump administration\u2019s signal that it is open season on civil society groups came at a particularly opportune moment as the nationwide protests \u2014 the biggest challenge to his decade-long grip on power \u2014 entered their fourth month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Stojanovic of Civic Initiatives said the government, caught off guard by the size and stamina of the protest movement, had for months floated conspiracy theories that foreign-funded \u201ctraitors and mercenaries\u201d were responsible for the unrest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Pro-government media in December branded Ms. Stojanovic, her husband, the former head of a long defunct nongovernmental organization, and a third person as a \u201cBlack Troika\u201d working with foreigners to destroy the state by manipulating students.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-10\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The attacks on U.S.A.I.D. in Washington as a \u201ccriminal organization\u201d took the campaign of vilification to a new level.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-11\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cEveryone is now afraid of being connected in any way to U.S.A.I.D.,\u201d said Steven Dojcinovic, the editor of Krik, an investigative media outlet long in the government\u2019s cross hairs, \u201cIt is like being part of a narco-cartel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He said his news organization had not received any American aid money but had still been pilloried by vicious pro-government tabloids as \u201cpart of a big crime family\u201d directed by the U.S. aid agency during the Biden administration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The governments of Hungary and Slovakia, whose leaders are enthusiastic supporters of Mr. Trump, have also seized on the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. as a club with which to beat their domestic opponents. That ignores the fact that the aid agency ended most of its funding in their countries after they joined the European Union in 2004.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Cheering what he said was Mr. Trump\u2019s effort to \u201cdrive a stake through the heart\u201d of \u201cthe monster\u201d financed by U.S.A.I.D. to serve \u201cthe liberal-globalist empire,\u201d Mr. Orban last week accused foreign-funded groups of trying to \u201ctopple\u201d his government and vowed to expunge them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-12\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThese international networks have to be taken down, they have to be swept away,\u201d Mr. Orban said on state radio. \u201cIt is necessary to make their existence legally impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Unlike Hungary, which received only tiny amounts of money from U.S.A.I.D., Serbia, which has applied to join the European Union but is not yet a member, has been a major European recipient of American aid, most of which went to the government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Among those who benefited was Jelena Milutinovic Ziljkic, the prosecutor investigating the raided nongovernmental organizations for money laundering. U.S.A.I.D. paid for a trip she took to Italy last year to study the Italian justice system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Serbia\u2019s <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/enlargement.ec.europa.eu\/system\/files\/2023-11\/EU-SRB%20FS.pdf\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">biggest source of foreign aid, however, has been the European Union,<\/a> which has provided more than $6 billion in loans and grants to build roads, improve sewage systems and pay for other projects. It has also given more than $35 million to support nongovernmental organizations, including those now under attack.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Bojana Selakovic, the coordinator of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/eukonvent.org\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">National Convention,<\/a> an independent body lobbying for Serbia\u2019s long-stalled entry to the European Union, said the \u201cTrump effect\u201d had set back her country\u2019s European aspiration by emboldening Mr. Vucic\u2019s nationalist, populist instincts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">President Trump, she added, \u201chas allowed Vucic to say he is acting in line with Western values and do things he could only dream of doing before.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/12\/world\/europe\/serbia-usaid-vucic-trump.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unable to calm student-led protests that just kept growing, Serbia\u2019s strongman leader, Aleksandar Vucic, reached for some tried-and-tested scapegoats, unleashing his media attack dogs on foreign-financed groups that have nettled him for years. But what started as a familiar ritual of intimidation against groups that document issues like corruption, human rights abuses and electoral fraud [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/03\/10\/multimedia\/xxint-serbia-usaid-01-zpqg\/xxint-serbia-usaid-01-zpqg-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14188,56929,5502,163575,2534,133031,164576,726,13505,1891,6039,137131,10639,183231,5010,52,163847,128437,163486,177668],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257887"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257889,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257887\/revisions\/257889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}