Where is Stefan?
Students are detained in Serbia with little explanation, Dodik’s family faces TV trouble across borders, and Lenin makes waves on a Turkish beach.
Good morning!
This is Balkan Brew, your favourite weekly dose of Balkan news, back this Friday with a slightly lighter edition. Summer is knocking on the door, but apparently, our workload hasn’t got the memo and just keeps piling up.
But hey, there is some good news: the issues between Kosovo and Serbia are finally solved! Don’t believe it? Just ask Donald Trump.
At the final press conference of the NATO summit, the US President told journalists: “in the last few weeks we took care of India and Pakistan, Kosovo, Serbia… I think on Friday we have coming in the Congo and Rwanda is coming in.” What exactly he meant is hard to say. But who knows, maybe this time he’ll actually bag that longed-for Nobel Peace Prize.
But, coming back to things that actually happened: students are disappearing without a trace in Serbia and reappearing days later in the hands of the police. How the Dodik family launched (and crashed) a new TV channel, and Lenin went for a swim in Turkey.
Let’s dive in.
PRETTY PLEASE. If you enjoy reading us every Friday (for free!), could you share this newsletter with 3 friends? It helps a lot. And if you’re new here, make sure you don’t miss the next one
Where is Stefan?
The arrests of students in Serbia aren’t slowing down, and with a protest planned for next Saturday, state repression is hitting fast and hard.
THE LATEST. On June 26, the Higher Court in Belgrade rejected the prosecution’s call for pre-trial detention and instead placed Stefan Tomić, a physics student, under house arrest.
After the hearing, Tomić was celebrated by a crowd of students and citizens. He said the judgment was “another victory.”
REVOLT. Tomić was arrested on June 23 for allegedly sending a photo of a handwritten message calling “for a violent change in the constitutional order.” He denies the accusation, saying he only wants general elections.
ABDUCTED. People present at Tomić’s arrest described it as a state crime. He was “forced into a car by two men in plain clothes who did not show identification.”
???. Nobody knew where he was or had other information about him, including his parents, for around four days. The hashtag #WhereIsStefan (#GdjeJeStefan) popped up on social media until he showed up at his first hearing.
TYPICAL PLAYBOOK. Forced and mysterious disappearances of protesters aren’t new in Serbia, but they’re becoming more frequent. Students are demanding general elections but are being met with threats and arrests.
📖 Serbian lawyer and activist Milan Vujić sent us a short text to explain what’s happening. He told Balkan Brew he was detained for his activism five years ago, and now sees the same thing happening again.
Ever since the protests began, there have been multiple cases of student abductions. One particularly alarming case happened a few months ago: a group of young women were illegally wiretapped while they were in the offices of a political party. [...] They were forcibly taken by unidentified individuals who never presented any form of ID and were put into unmarked vehicles. For hours, no one knew where they were or what had happened to them. Eventually, it turned out they had been taken in for an “informative interview” by the Security Intelligence Agency, without any legal basis.
[Three of the six activists arrested at the time are still in prison, three are now under house arrests and another six people present at the recorded meeting are now living in exile].
[...] Now, it is happening again. Plainclothes, unidentified individuals are grabbing students off the street and forcing them into vehicles. Their families, lawyers, and the public are not informed. Days later, the authorities claim the students are being investigated for “preparing to overthrow the constitutional order.”
Welcome to Dodik TV
A new regional TV channel based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, based on the promise of high journalistic standards and, well, high salaries (this never hurts). Welcome to UNA TV, est. 2021.
WHERE’S THE CATCH. There were always strong suspicions that the TV was linked to the family of Milorad Dodik, the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Republika Srpska - more specifically to his son, Igor Dodik.
THE FULL PICTURE. BIRN has put together a feature about the full history of UNA TV, based on first-hand accounts from people who worked there.
SANCTIONS. Despite putting together an impressive team of journalists, UNA TV stopped operating in several countries in 2024, as a consequence of the US sanctions against Dodik’s family.
HOLDING ON. UNA TV still operates in Serbia.
IN CASE YOU’RE WONDERING. Still free…
IN OTHER NEWS.
A huge steel plant in Galați, Romania, is on the edge of bankruptcy, putting the survival of hundreds of local companies at risk.
The Bulgarian police are searching for a black leopard in Šumen. The leopard has not been found, but the search has sparked a wave of memes, BIRN reports.
A new poll shows that 46 percent of Serbian citizens are in favour of the country’s EU accession. 44 percent are against.
BIGGER AND WILDER. As you might have noticed, over the last decade, the city of Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina has grown big time. In fact, its growth has been pretty wild, because for the past 30 years, the town hasn’t had a development plan.
Mayor Draško Stanivuković even took pride in Banja Luka’s unregulated growth in some cringy PR videos during his last campaign.
WELCOME, LENIN. In the summer of 1993, a bust of Lenin washed up on the shore of the Akçakoca district in Turkey. Lenin was a controversial figure in the country, so local authorities didn’t quite know what to do with it. The statue’s origin was never discovered, but it attracted a lot of attention. The bust has since inspired movies and documentaries, and is now a tourist attraction.
And that’s a wrap for this week. If you like Balkan Brew, don’t forget to recommend it to someone who might be interested - it’s the easiest (and cheapest) way to support our work. Spotted a mistake? Want to say hi? Just reply to this email. Or come find us on Bluesky or LinkedIn.
Until next week, go big, go wild,
BB