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On 21 January, plainclothes police officers detained a group of civil society workers at a Belgrade hotel and transported them in unmarked vehicles to the Novi Beograd police station. Those detained were nationals of Croatia, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Romania, and Albania, and had come to Belgrade to participate in the Erste Academy program. They were held for several hours and questioned about their education and the reasons for their visit.
Before being released, the detainees were required to sign a document written in Serbian and Cyrillic script - a language and script most of them do not understand. The document, issued as an administrative decision, stated that their stay had been identified as "an unacceptable security risk to the Republic of Serbia," citing the opinion of an unnamed state body responsible for national security.
Each person was given 24 hours to leave the country and banned from re-entering Serbia for one year. The decision did not specify any concrete grounds for the security assessment, nor was any explanation provided for why these individuals were targeted.
The incident was publicly condemned by civil society organizations in the region. Signatories of a joint statement described the detentions as unlawful and characterized them as part of a broader effort to reinforce narratives about foreign agents and outside interference - a framing used repeatedly by Serbian authorities to delegitimize civil society. They called on the Serbian state to apologize to those detained and to revoke the Ministry of Interior's decisions.
Before being released, the detainees were required to sign a document written in Serbian and Cyrillic script - a language and script most of them do not understand. The document, issued as an administrative decision, stated that their stay had been identified as "an unacceptable security risk to the Republic of Serbia," citing the opinion of an unnamed state body responsible for national security.
Each person was given 24 hours to leave the country and banned from re-entering Serbia for one year. The decision did not specify any concrete grounds for the security assessment, nor was any explanation provided for why these individuals were targeted.
The incident was publicly condemned by civil society organizations in the region. Signatories of a joint statement described the detentions as unlawful and characterized them as part of a broader effort to reinforce narratives about foreign agents and outside interference - a framing used repeatedly by Serbian authorities to delegitimize civil society. They called on the Serbian state to apologize to those detained and to revoke the Ministry of Interior's decisions.
