COVID19 i Srbija - društvene posledice

Bluberi wrote:SCRIBD je otključan.

Bendegúz Somogyi wrote:Šta je na slikama gore?

Bendegúz Somogyi wrote:Šta je na slikama gore?

Janko Suvar wrote:Mislim da sam pozitivan u iljadu stop migrantima grupa, ili u jedno ali iljadu puta. 

dosta su poludeli ljudi.

COVID

Detention for citizens and centralised information policy in Serbia

The country uses emergency regulations with draconian punishments against those who do not comply with the corona measures

Adelheid Wölfl April 3, 2020, 08:18

Criticism of the actions of the Serbian authorities in the Covid 19 crisis is growing louder.

The Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić apparently realized that she had gone too far. After journalist Ana Lalić was arrested on Wednesday for reporting on the alarming conditions at the hospital in Novi Sad, where there is apparently too little protective clothing for nurses, Brnabić has withdrawn the decree of 28 March, which states that anyone who passes on information about Covid-19 that has not been authorised should be punished. The authorisation had to be made centrally through the crisis management team, which is managed by Brnabić.

The Prime Minister admitted on Thursday on the state television channel RTS that she had made a "mistake" in issuing the order.

Independent journalists' associations had immediately voiced criticism following the new decree, arguing that this kind of centralised information policy was tantamount to censorship. The Youth Initiative for Human Rights had been particularly active in this case. On Wednesday, a man was also arrested who had claimed via text message that there would now be an all-inclusive, i.e. 24-hour curfew.

Complying with the Constitution

The regulation is now to be amended again. "It is my fault that we brought in something like this, and it is also my stupidity that I did not explain when we brought it in," Brnabić told Serbian television about the regulation. Lalić had even asked for an official statement before reporting, but did not receive it. The hospital administration had claimed that the article of Lalić created "public unrest" and damaged the reputation of the hospital.

The regional platform for media freedom, the organisation "Security of Journalists" and other media organisations condemned the government's action and demanded that the constitution be respected and that the state of emergency not be used to restrict the freedom of the media.

Criticism of state of emergency

Serbia has already declared a state of emergency by President Aleksandar Vučić on 15th March - many other European countries have not done so. Human rights organisations such as the "A-11 Initiative" criticise that a state of emergency would not have been necessary at all, because in other states parliamentary processes are quite possible even during the Covid 19 crisis. In addition, the threats of punishment for persons who do not comply with the pandemic regulations are extremely high, and because the state of emergency applies, citizens are even prosecuted.

This already happened last week, as reported by the news channel N1. Three citizens were sentenced in Dimitrovgrad and in Požarevac for failing to comply with the "self-isolation" and thus health orders. One person was sentenced to three years in prison, the other two to two and a half years. This also happened in court cases that were conducted via Skype. Experts criticize that such practices drastically violate the right of the defendant to a fair trial.

Curfews from 20:00

Persons entering Serbia from abroad must remain in self-isolation for 14 days. People coming from Italy, Switzerland, Iran, Romania, Spain, Germany, France, Austria, Slovenia or Greece even have to go into self-isolation for 28 days. Like many other states in south-eastern Europe, Serbia has the problem that many guest workers who now return were previously in European areas with a higher infection rate.

The curfews are also drastic - from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. nobody is allowed on the streets. People who live in towns and cities and are over 65 years old, and people who live in the countryside and are over 70 years old, are no longer allowed to leave their homes at all. This regulation is criticised by civil rights and constitutional experts as discrimination against older citizens. Already in the first hours of the curfew more than 150 citizens were arrested.

Criminalization

Persons who do not respect the curfews can also be severely punished. According to many experts, this criminal criminalisation is inappropriate. According to the Ministry of the Interior, 2,500 criminal charges have already been filed for non-compliance with curfews.

However, it is obvious that the health care system is overburdened with the challenges of virus infections, as are most health care systems in the world. One of the big problems in Serbia, however, is that even in comparison with similarly poor countries, very little testing is done and therefore nobody can really estimate how many people are affected by infections. So far about 4,500 people have been tested, 1,060 of them are infected, 28 people have died with Covid-19, including 63-year-old Secretary of State for the Environment Branislav Blažić.

Confusion through SMS

Confusion was also caused on Tuesday by a text message that Telekom Srbija customers received. It said: "The situation is dramatic. We are approaching a scenario like the ones in Italy and Spain. Please stay at home." An additional source of uncertainty for many citizens was the fact that people who show symptoms of Covid-19 disease are now advised to go directly to the emergency rooms of health centers and not to contact their doctors by phone. Previously, citizens had been instructed not to go to the hospital but to call.

There are also numerous conspiracy theories and fake news circulating in Serbia - and throughout the Balkans. This also has to do with the fact that in the region in general there are many more conspiracy theories believed and there is less trust in institutions than in Central Europe.

Fake news and disinformation

Another problem is so-called "expert interviews" - sometimes with Germans - which are translated and convey that the crisis has been "invented", or otherwise disinformation. Many people in the Balkans believe these "experts" only because they are German. A huge challenge is the fake news, which is spread by the Russian media and sometimes adopted completely uncritically.

It was also striking that Serbia received 93 million euros from the EU for its health system after President Vučić complained that the EU only sends medical equipment and aids to non-EU countries with special permission because these materials are now urgently needed within the EU - for example in Italy and Spain. Vučić had also praised China, which is currently selling more and more of its medical products to all European countries and also to the Balkans. There has been concern in the EU for years that China could become a competitor for them in the Balkans. This fear has apparently skillfully activated Vučić in Brussels.

The end of parliamentarianism

Civil rights initiatives also criticize the fact that few democratic debates were held in the states of Southeast Europe during the Covid 19 crisis. The opposition in Serbia has not yet called for a special parliamentary session either. Although the parliament is not officially switched off, as in Hungary, parliamentarianism in Serbia has been dysfunctional for years, and now there is no parliamentary work at all during the crisis.

The "real" opposition - there are also so-called opposition parties, which in reality are under the control of Vučićs SNS - has been boycotted by the media for a long time. The media are largely under the control of the SNS. Power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of Vučićs - who himself is still the leader of the Progress Party, although the constitution states in article 115 that a president should not exercise any other public function or professional obligation.

Janko Suvar wrote:Mislim da sam pozvan u iljadu stop migrantima grupa, ili u jedno ali iljadu puta. 

dosta su poludeli ljudi.

Marius Lăcătuș wrote:

Bendegúz Somogyi wrote:Šta je na slikama gore?

hamer je pored ograde azilnog centra u krnjaci, druge dve su akcije policije u migrantskom kampu u obrenovcu. 

pokazna vezba za novi odnos drzave prema migrantima koji se upravo provezbava

No Country wrote:Ма зајебавам се. Немам ни Фејсбук ни твитер. Немају начина да ме зову. Иначе би звали, они бирају таман колико и телемаркетари.