Update
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In a press release issued today, the prosecutor's office announced it had found a document from a January 22, 2025 meeting of the student organization "Students in Blockade - Umbrella Working Group for Security." Based on that document, it has instructed the Criminal Police Directorate's Counter-Terrorism Service to collect information that could support charges under Article 309 of the Criminal Code - incitement to violent overthrow of the constitutional order. The press release claims that participants of the meeting had planned to simulate the use of a sound cannon in order to frame the authorities.
What the prosecutor's office is now demanding
The scope of what has been announced goes far beyond investigating a specific group of student activists. The prosecutor's office has ordered the police to:
Why these demands are alarming
Interrogating those who spoke publicly is not an investigative measure - it is a chilling effect. The category of people who "publicly claimed that a sound cannon was used" encompasses journalists, civil society organizations, lawyers, physicians, and thousands of ordinary citizens who reported their experience. Summoning them all for questioning on the basis of what they said publicly would amount to state-directed harassment of public discourse on an issue of clear public interest.
Investigating doctors who organized medical examinations is equally serious. It threatens medical confidentiality, places health professionals at legal risk for doing their jobs, and sends a clear message to future victims of state violence: seeking medical care may expose those who provide it to prosecution. No legitimate criminal investigation into a protest incident requires identifying and questioning physicians who treated those present.
Investigating doctors who organized medical examinations is equally serious. It threatens medical confidentiality, places health professionals at legal risk for doing their jobs, and sends a clear message to future victims of state violence: seeking medical care may expose those who provide it to prosecution. No legitimate criminal investigation into a protest incident requires identifying and questioning physicians who treated those present.
The broader context
For fifteen months, the case of the sound cannon has been stuck in pre-investigation status, without a legal qualification of the offense, without public findings, and without accountability. An independent investigation by Earshot, based on audio analysis of 19 videos and over 3,000 witness testimonies, concluded that there is a high probability protesters were exposed to a targeted attack using a directional acoustic weapon. Six UN Special Rapporteurs have called for an independent investigation. The ECHR has intervened, issuing an interim measure prohibiting Serbia from using sonic weapons.
In response to none of this has there been any step toward accountability.
Instead, the investigation has now turned in a different direction entirely - toward the same narrative promoted by Serbia's Security Information Agency when it presented an analysis by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB): that the sound cannon was staged by the protesters themselves.
In response to none of this has there been any step toward accountability.
Instead, the investigation has now turned in a different direction entirely - toward the same narrative promoted by Serbia's Security Information Agency when it presented an analysis by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB): that the sound cannon was staged by the protesters themselves.
"A shot at Vučić": officials and pro-government media launch a campaign
Pro-government media, state and party officials have spent the day running a campaign built on the prosecutor's press release, leveling sweeping accusations against all government critics and the victims of the March 15 sonic weapon attack who had the courage to speak publicly about what happened to them.
One of the first to react was Ana Brnabić, Speaker of the Parliament:
"The 'sound cannon' lie, and the preparation of such a lie, was a shot at President Aleksandar Vučić, and a shot at Serbia itself. As Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, I demand that all the details be uncovered, that everyone involved be identified, and that it be established how this was planned, because the idea was to kill Aleksandar Vučić, kill his family, and provoke a civil war in the Republic of Serbia," Brnabić said in a video statement. She stressed that it was unbelievable to learn that this falsehood had been planned, that it was not an isolated incident, but had been organized more than a month and a half in advance: "They planned it, organized it, and trained people in order to promote it."
One of the first to react was Ana Brnabić, Speaker of the Parliament:
"The 'sound cannon' lie, and the preparation of such a lie, was a shot at President Aleksandar Vučić, and a shot at Serbia itself. As Speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, I demand that all the details be uncovered, that everyone involved be identified, and that it be established how this was planned, because the idea was to kill Aleksandar Vučić, kill his family, and provoke a civil war in the Republic of Serbia," Brnabić said in a video statement. She stressed that it was unbelievable to learn that this falsehood had been planned, that it was not an isolated incident, but had been organized more than a month and a half in advance: "They planned it, organized it, and trained people in order to promote it."
