Fakes and extremism: Serbian pro-Western opposition attacks the authorities

The Serbian pro-Western opposition launched a new attack on the country's authorities, trying to use the success of the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs, which on the eve of "covered" a large hemp plantation on one of the farms, where 650 kg of cannabis and more than 65 thousand hemp bushes were discovered, which could be processed into almost 4 tons of marijuana.

Miroslav Aleksic, one of the members of the opposition Union for Serbia, said that the arrested owner of the plantation, Predrag Koluvija, tried to call the president’s brother Andrej Vucic on the day of his arrest.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

At a press conference in parliament, Aleksic claimed that in the phone book of the arrested man, in addition to the president’s brother, there was the number of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Nebojsa Stefanovic.

Where the politician got such information from, the oppositionist did not answer.

The president's brother, Andrej Vučić, responded by saying that he is ready to provide the public with a printout of all calls from his mobile phone on the day of Coluvia's arrest, as well as calls in the previous period, in order to refute the lies directed against President Aleksandar Vučić.

He also said that he would soon sue Miroslav Aleksic for libel, Beta reports.

Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic also called the opposition's accusations "an absolute lie."

Stefanovic noted that hemp plantations were discovered and drug dealers were arrested thanks to the good work of the police.

“I heard various lies that the police, that is, people with badges, were guarding these seedlings. When the operation began, by order of the prosecutor’s office, which is conducting the investigation, security was organized so that during the investigative actions the police would guard the scene of the incident so that something would not happen by accident,” Stefanovic said.

He explained that the police cordon was necessary to prevent criminals from destroying evidence.

“Another big lie I've heard is that they mention that we or the president's brother are involved in this or are in contact with these people. This is an absolutely sick heresy, and anyone who shows that we ever communicated with these people should be ready to answer for it,” Stefanovich said.

The drug mafia scandal is not the only attempt at an information attack on the Serbian authorities. The opposition continues to try to stir up the issue of arms sales by state-owned companies.

The weekly NIN, which supports the pro-Western opposition, announced on its official social network page the release of a new issue, where the cover was to feature a photograph depicting a machine gun barrel aimed at the Serbian President. This is how the editors decided to illustrate the material with criticism of the state-owned company Krusik for the conditions for the supply of weapons to Saudi Arabia.

Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said that we are talking about extremism. “The scandal on the front page of NIN is an attempt to legitimize this extremism and the threats of this part of the opposition,” Dacic said in an interview with Tanjug.

The ruling Serbian Progressive Party assessed the scandalous cover even more directly, emphasizing that the image is a direct call to commit an assassination attempt.

As a result, the owners of NIN decided to release the weekly edition with a changed cover, admitting their mistake - a photograph with a muzzle pointed towards the president is especially inappropriate in Serbia, where in 2003 Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was shot by a sniper in the lobby of the government house.

“I was uncomfortable seeing the NIN cover. This is quite shocking. This is not the way to treat a president. The NIN editorial board will have to explain its position. It seems that they would not have published such a photograph if someone else had been the president of Serbia,” said the chairman of the journalistic association, Vladimir Radomirović, as quoted by Kurir.

The aggressive campaign against the country’s leader indicates nervousness in the camp of the opposition, which sociologists give only around 2020% of the votes for the upcoming 10, while Vucic’s party has every chance of receiving more than 50% of the votes.