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Vice Blog

BELGRADE - PRO RIOTING


Montreal may talk a big game when it comes to rioting, but they've got nothing on Serbia's Obraz. They're a local, student-based group of neo-nazis supported by the Serbian Orthodox Church (nice one, Serbian Orthodox Church) who latch onto any right-leaning demonstration that may lend itself to pummeling the shit out of the Serbian cops with bricks and gas bombs. Kind of like the Black Bloc if they had it out for Croats, Bonsians, Jews, Albanians, foreigners in general, Muslims, and gays instead of just The Man.

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For an indication of just how soft yesterday's anti-police riots in Montreal North was by Balkan standards, compare the above video of masked Montrealites mousing back and forth while they try to decide whether or not to throw their rock with these pictures Henry Langston sent us from Belgrade a couple weeks ago.

From Henry:"For a little bit of context, the radical and nationalist parties of Serbia had individually been holding relatively small-scale protests all week against the imprisonment of Radovan Karadzic on Monday the 20th. The two parties joined forces to stage a huge protest called "Freedom for Serbia" on the 29th, when Karadzic was set to be moved to The Hague. Many key Serbian politicians and celebrities spoke at the rally, calling for unity against the leading Democratic Party. Also present were members of Obraz, who distinguished themselves from the rest of the crowd by giving the Nazi salute, waving the 100-year-old flag of the Kingdom of Serbia, and generally looking a lot harder and less shit-giving than the regular supporters.

Most of the signs below, even the one with the swastika, weren't being carried by Obrazi. The writing on them generally just said things like "Free Karadzic" or "Free Mladic" or made claims that Kosovo belonged to Serbia or the Srebenica massacre never happened, etc etc.

After two hours of speeches the mood changed instantly, and the Obraz members just tore into the police with whatever they could get their hands on: street signs, flower planters, paving slabs, bottles, garbage, flares and fireworks, iron poles they'd pulled out of the sidewalk, and in a few cases handguns. Fucking handguns. I got trapped with an American guy behind a kiosk that backed onto a construction site right in between the rioters and police. One Obraz member came up to me and spoke in Serbian. I responded that I was English (bad thing to do in Belgrade in general) and he disappeared back into the throng. In his place came a much larger Obraz member all hooded up who started shoving me around and going for my camera (I later found out that Obrazi attacked several other journalists that day, putting one in the hospital). Luckily I was saved by a few policemen who saw what was going on and broke away from the line to help me out. Then a tear-gas canister landed two feet away from me and exploded right in my face.

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The American guy and I scrambled over the fence of the construction site where I spent 15 minutes clawing at my face and heaving uncontrollably from the gas. Once I'd gotten over it, I went back across the wall to the street just in time to get charged by the police along with the 100 or so rioters left.

At the time of the protest I didn't know who the Obrazi were. I thought the rioters were just football hooligans and local thugs. It was'nt until the Friday, after talking to the deputy vice president of the radical party, that he told me who they were. He even introduced me to Obraz's leader, who was only a few years older than me (23) and extremely politicized even though most of his followers aren't. I'd been a regular at the protests, but after talking to the higher-ups I was followed back to my hostel by Obraz. Thank fuck I managed to lose them."
HENRY LANGSTON