With new, less repressive tactics, countries like Serbia, Poland and Hungary are deploying highly effective tools to skew public opinion.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/17/world/europe/serbia-media-censorship.html
Serbia no longer jails or kills critical journalists, as happened under the rule of Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s. It now seeks to destroy their credibility and ensure few people see their reports.
Dara of Jasenovac and Quo Vadis, Aida? take different tacts on filmic representation of war crimes.
via Hyperallergic: https://hyperallergic.com/634129/dara-of-jasenovac-contrasting-histories-of-genocide-in-former-yugoslavia/
In sharp contrast to Antonijević, the director of Quo Vadis, Aida?, Jasmila Žbanić, has come out forcefully against this tendency to speak of “our” genocide against “yours.” Speaking for the necessity to remember all genocides equally, she denounced pitting a Serbian and Bosnian film against each other. In a recent interview, Žbanić said, “As for Jasenovac, genocide was committed there, and that is the greatest tragedy of our peoples. In terms of horror, Jasenovac cannot be compared to anything, and not one, but 50 films should be made about it.” She then connected the two tragedies thus: “The fact that Srebrenica happened after Jasenovac shows how much violence and crime are something that has not been overcome in this area.”
A reputed gangster and leader of an “ultras” fan group, who also reportedly had ties to the government, has been arrested following a series of gruesome murders connected to a Belgrade soccer stadium.
Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/world/europe/serbia-soccer-hooligans.html
The name is well deserved. Serbian soccer fans, at least those who in prepandemic days used to cram into the rowdy south stands of Partizan’s stadium and the equally anarchic north side of the arena used by its Belgrade archrivals, Red Star, have long had a reputation for extraordinary violence.