From SLAPP lawsuits to physical threats and media smear campaigns, environmental activists in Serbia face mounting pressure from state institutions and corporate interests. From Zelena Srbija.
Environmental activism in Serbia faces a double problem. On one side are the interests of corporations and political decisions, on the other the lack of action by state institutions, and their repressive tactics against environmentalists.
Bureaucracy, lawsuits, physical attacks, threats, and negative media campaigns are some of the challenges faced by environmental activists, and in the fight for nature and environmental protection, the state has become a direct rival, activists say.
The key obstacle is not only environmental laws, but also the use of legal levers and other forms of pressure in the fight against environmental activists, while there is no mechanism for their protection and no statistics.
Direct Repression and Legal Intimidation
“In about 13 months, I have been in court 27 times,” says Dragana Arsic from the organization Odbranimo Sume Fruske Gore (Let’s Protect the Forests of Fruska Gora).
Many activists are slapped with misdemeanor or criminal charges or private lawsuits. The goal of these lawsuits is not always a guilty verdict, but for the accused to spend their energy on defense instead of activism.
“We reduced the scope of our activities, because it was simply exhausting, and that is the negative part. What is positive is that we received wide support from activists and when they saw that we were winning the lawsuits, people took heart and that was a wind at their backs,” she says, adding that five lawsuits have been filed against her – three for injury to reputation and honor, one for violation of state rights, and one for material damage.
Defenders of the Fruska Gora forests cut a padlock and chain on a fence in the forest, after an inspection concluded that the fence was erected illegally, and the state did not order the fence to be removed.
“A deer got entangled in the fence and died. The fence must not be in the forest, in nature where wild animals move, and the inspection stated that, and instead of ordering that fence to be removed, [the government] did not do it. Then citizens took matters into their own hands and symbolically cut the fence, with the intention of once again showing the institutions that they should do their job. However, we get lawsuits,” Arsic says.
SLAPP lawsuits have become an increasingly common tool of intimidation. According to the Council of Europe, SLAPP lawsuits – strategic lawsuits against public participation – are legal actions that are threatened, initiated, or conducted as a means of harassing or intimidating their target, and which seek to prevent, prohibit, limit or punish free expression on matters of public interest and the exercise of rights related to public participation.
Danica Jankovic, a legal adviser at the Belgrade-based Regional Center for Environmental Law, says SLAPP lawsuits are often filedagainst activists.
“It has happened that environmental activists were overloaded with either misdemeanor charges, criminal charges, or private lawsuits from various companies against which they were involved,” Jankovic says.
Lawyer Luka Djordjevic also believes that groundless lawsuits lasting years are part of the problem.
“After a long procedure, a prosecutor may decide to withdraw the lawsuit and pay the costs, but he has fulfilled his goal – he harassed someone for, let’s say, a year and a half,” Djordjevic says, citing many examples of citizens who have fought exhausting disputes for years.
There are times, the lawyer says, when companies initiate proceedings without any basis, just to expose activists to ridicule in their local environment, and “in order to create an image – if you protest, this is what will happen.”
“They sue you for misdemeanors – criminal and civil – everything they can, so that then citizens would actually spend most of their money and energy on defending themselves,” he says, adding that although these proceedings are unpleasant and numerous, they can still serve as an excellent source of finance for environmental activists who are persistent enough to participate in the proceedings and defend themselves in the end.
Physical Threats, Arrests, and Negative Media Campaigns
In addition to lawsuits, environmental activists face intimidation, including physical violence, threats, and arrests.
“Repression against environmental activists was really a trial balloon for everything to come, that is, what has befallen us now,” says Iva Markovic, program director of the Polekol Organization for Political Ecology, adding that everything the public is seeing now, environmental activists have already endured, and it was often under the public’s radar.
Ivan Milosavljevic Buki of the Rendzera Istocne Srbije (Rangers of Eastern Serbia) was exposed to open threats of physical violence because of his activities in Zagubica.
“The head of the municipalitywas offended because we mentioned him in our posts on social networks. He sent his people to pick me up in a bar. They took me to his casino, and he came there and threatened me,” says Milosavljevic.
Arsic described another physical attack targeting environmental activist Petar Zivanovic.
“In one situation, he found logs being pulled out of the forest. There were four of them, three employees of that company and one employee from the national park. They knocked him to the ground, took his phone, and broke it. They kicked and punched him. He suffered minor injuries. A national park ranger did not prevent the attack,” she says.
In addition to physical attacks, activists have also been arrested for their actions. More than a year ago, members of the Eko Straza (Eco Guard) were arrested, says the organization’s founder, Bojan Simisic.
“We had the idea that environmental protests should no longer be held as one big protest of 50,000 people, but that they should grow throughout Serbia and block intersections, so that the fight could spread to several fronts. After that announcement, literally the next day, five of our members were taken into custody and accused of disturbing the constitutional order,” says Simisic. He says the purpose of such charges is not to secure a 15-year prison sentence – something he considers highly unlikely – but rather to allow the state to use its legal powers to detain activists for 30 or 60 days.
Daniela Stojkovic Jovanovic, who has been advocating for the Danube for 30 years through the magazine Sveti Dunav (Holy Danube) and through the nonprofit organization Svet i Dunav(the World and the Danube), was involved in various projects related to the Danube and cooperated with institutions. But when she joined the fight, she was blacklisted and since then has experienced constant pressure and financial exhaustion through misdemeanor charges and the blocking of her organization.
“Svet i Dunav has been in existence for 32 years and for the first time we are now facing a two-year stoppage. The cause is constant financial fines and unfounded asset seizures by the courts. As long as we pay, they produce new fines,” she says.
In addition to this, she also has been charged with misdemeanor offenses for disrespectful and reckless behavior, and was arrested during protests against tree cutting in a forest in Novi Sad.
The pressures on environmental activists are not always on the ground, however: many state that media carried out smear campaigns against them.
Regime-friendly media and websites have called the activists “the environmental Taliban,” “terrorists,” and “Ustasha” [the fascist government of Croatia during World War II]. The media has also spread lies about their private life and financing, according to the activists.
Laws in Favor of Nature or Investors?
“The change in the law only benefits the interests of investors. The question is whether those who wrote environmental protection laws would now know what nature is,” says Djordjevic.
Inconsistencies in this matter can be seen when the content of these laws is compared, Djordjevic says. As an example, he cites the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment, which states that when the impact assessment procedure is initiated, site conditionsare submitted with the request. On the other hand, the Law on Planning and Construction states that the decision of the competent authority on whether it is necessary or not to carry out an assessment shall be submitted with the request for the issuance of location conditions.
“The new law on impact assessment that is in force today practically deletes the interested public from the procedure. The interested public is mentioned in the new law in only two, three, or four places,” says Djordjevic, comparing the Serbian law to the European Union directive on impact assessment, in which the interested public is mentioned about 20 times.
Iva Markovic from Serbian civil society group Polekol also agrees that there is a problem with the implementation of the law and that some laws are not harmonized with each other.
“When it comes to environmental laws, the platitude ‘laws are good for us, but they are not enforced’ is not very accurate either,” she says. “Many areas are not regulated, there are many loopholes that companies take advantage of. Sometimes companies, sometimes the state itself.” Markovic adds that the democratic procedures necessary for these laws to be enacted in the public interest, and enforced, are lacking.
[Changes to the criminal law touching on public protests have also been debated in parliament.] “The changes that have been proposed are a step further and deeper into repression, which certainly does not help environmental activism,” says Markovic, adding that citizens will certainly not give up due to repression, but that they will have more difficulties.
Jankovic of the Regional Center for Environmental Law said that amendments to the criminal code that failed to be adopted in 2024 would have introduced some criminal acts not beneficial to environmental activists.
“Any publication of content that can be interpreted as giving information about the execution of a criminal act – for example, calling for a protest – would have been criminalized. This was really intended for publishing information related to protests on social networks,” Jankovic says, adding that the provision concerning road blockades was also problematic.
Eko Straza’s Bojan Simisic agrees with her that any call for a protest or a road blockade would mean a conflict with the law.
(Non-)Cooperation with the State
The question arises whether environmental activists can count on the help of state institutions.
“We have now passed the point where it makes sense to beg the institutions for crumbs,” says Markovic. Illustrating the point, she notes that when invitations went out to join a working group on a new natural protection law, in a show of solidarity, no environmental organization accepted.
“Civil disobedience occurs when we see that there is no response. The best example of this is Rakita,” Markovic says, referring to local opposition to a hydropower plant on the Rakita river in southeastern Serbia.
“The Institute for Nature Protection [decided that] the investor must remove the pipes from the river bed and return the river to its previous state. So, it exists in black and white. Not only did the investor not do it, but that hydroelectric plant still exists,” says Markovic. “Somewhere, someone with credibility in the institutions responded and indicated that this should be done. However, the other institutions that should make sure that this doesn’t happen remained completely mute and then the citizens symbolically tried to take matters into their own hands.”
Situations like this would be avoided if Serbia had a functioning state, Markovic says.
The state does not function when it comes to protecting environmental activists either.
“We don’t have built-in protection mechanisms. You are being sued by a company or threatened by someone because of your activism, and you are treated the same as any other natural person,” Markovic says. “So we don’t have any protection. Our only protection is the public. Our second protection is mutual solidarity, because we all know each other and have been through a lot together. And the third thing, very often, is to turn to international organizations.
“There are so many cases of pressure on environmental activists, and we don’t have the capacity. We, as environmental activists, have never dealt with it. We dealt with the topic. For us, the focus is rivers, water, air, forest, and for us dealing with our own issues was not a priority,” says Markovic.
Nikolija Codanovic is a freelance journalist and fact-checker with experience working at Istinomer and interning at the Serbian investigative journalism center CINS.
This article originally appeared on the Beta news agency’s Zelena Srbija site. Republished by permission. The article was translated by the Association for International Affairs in Prague. Transitions has done some editing for clarity and length.
