Website “Testimonies of Police Brutality” created, about violence against citizens in Novi Sad

The academic network Slobodan univerzitet (Free University), in cooperation with several other organizations, has created a website (svedocanstva.labs.rs) with testimonies of police brutality to which, as they state, students and citizens were exposed in Novi Sad on the night of September 5th and 6th. The presentation of this research and artistic installation, titled “Testimonies of Police Brutality,” will be organized on Thursday, October 30th, at 7 PM in the campus of the University of Novi Sad.

“Following the events of September 5th in Novi Sad, numerous testimonies were collected from students, professors, and citizens exposed to repression by members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP). The results of this research, along with a temporary artistic installation that reconstructs the collective experience of violence and resistance, will be presented to the public for the first time,” stated Slobodan univerzitet on social media.

The program on Thursday will include a video projection, a discussion with the research and artistic team, as well as a guided tour through the exhibition at the event locations.

“We invite all participants and witnesses, as well as the interested public, to attend the event and contribute to understanding the consequences of what happened and what we must learn from it. The idea of this database is for the testimonies of victims of police brutality to remain permanently recorded and thus become a way of rebellion against repression,” stated Slobodan univerzitet.

Following a peaceful student protest over the violation of university autonomy and the entry of police into the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Sports and Physical Education, the assembled group headed towards the Faculty of Philosophy, where police officers “soon applied various forms of repression, such as physical violence, the use of pyrotechnics, chemical agents, and detention against the citizens’ will.”

“On October 1st, the police officially left the Rectorate building. Their stay for several weeks on the territory of the University of Novi Sad will be inscribed in history as a unique example of police occupation of an academic space,” stated Slobodan univerzitet.

In addition to Slobodan univerzitet, representatives of the organization “Kampus – Zona slobode” (Campus – Zone of Freedom) also participated in data collection. The research was also carried out with the help of the Center for Cultural Decontamination, SHARE Lab, and the Student Editorial Board Blokada Info./Danas/