An activist of the civic movement Zbor Rakovica, identified only as Voja, was pulled from a supermarket by a group of attackers, beaten, forced into a vehicle, and driven to an unknown location - where he was threatened, intermittently beaten, and compelled to film himself falsely confessing to drug possession. The incident, which unfolded in the Belgrade municipality of Resnik, has prompted a criminal complaint and raised sharp questions about the safety of civic activists in Serbia. Voja recounted the events in detail to the N1 television network.
Dragged From a Store in Plain Sight, Without Masks
Voja said the attack began after a confrontation that targeted three activists simultaneously. Seeking refuge, he entered a nearby Univerexport supermarket, assuming the public setting would protect him. It did not. A group of between five and seven men entered the store around 9 p.m. and removed him by force - openly, without masks, and without any apparent concern about witnesses.
"They pulled me out of Univerexport around 9 p.m., without any masks and without any need to hide," Voja told N1. "They beat me in front of the shop and threw me into a car and drove me in an unknown direction, so I literally feared for my life."
To bystanders inside the store, the attackers reportedly shouted that they had caught a pedophile - a claim Voja characterized as a deliberate attempt to frame the abduction as a citizens' intervention and deflect reaction from those present. The use of such a framing in public is a known tactic for neutralizing witnesses: casting the victim as a criminal shifts moral attention and discourages intervention.
Inside the Vehicle: Interrogation, Threats, and a Forced Confession
Once inside the car, Voja described a sustained period of physical and psychological pressure. The attackers demanded to know how Zbor Rakovica is organized internally and who provides its funding - lines of questioning that suggest the assault was not opportunistic but directed at extracting information about the movement's structure.
The threats were explicit and legally specific: the attackers warned him about consequences related to "an attack on an official person," a phrase that implies the involvement of, or connection to, individuals holding some form of institutional status. The most calculated element of the ordeal, according to Voja, was the demand that he film himself on camera admitting to possessing narcotics.
"They forced me to film myself admitting that I possess narcotics and how that is their proof that they can charge me with it," he said. This is a coercion method with a clear purpose: to manufacture leverage, either to deter the victim from reporting the crime or to deploy as a preemptive counter-narrative if the case reaches prosecutors or the public.
The Moment That Changed the Situation
The dynamic shifted, Voja explained, when his attackers discovered - while going through his phone - that their names had already been published and that an N1 television crew was en route to file a report. The response was immediate and telling: the tone changed from threats to negotiation.
"They said just not to give any interviews and that everything can pass fine, just not to spread the story and not to publish their names," Voja recalled. They also offered what he described as compensation - framed as reimbursement for breaking his glasses and knocking off his sneakers during the attack. Voja acknowledged it could be interpreted as a bribe, though it was not presented as one explicitly.
The sequence matters. It indicates that the attackers were not operating as an anonymous mob but as individuals who understood the risk of public exposure and were willing to alter their behavior once that exposure became real. That responsiveness to media pressure also suggests they had reason to believe they were, until that moment, protected from accountability.
Criminal Complaint Filed, Trauma Ongoing
Voja's lawyer, Vladimir Tupanjac, confirmed to N1 that a criminal complaint has been filed against the individuals Voja identified as his attackers. Physically, Voja said he was fortunate - no internal fractures, no bleeding. But he described himself as still mentally exhausted and under trauma, and acknowledged lingering fear about what consequences may follow from speaking publicly.
The attack on Voja fits a pattern that human rights organizations and press freedom monitors have documented across parts of the Western Balkans: activists and journalists subjected to intimidation that is designed not only to harm the individual but to signal risk to others in the same civic space. The visibility of the attack - carried out without disguise, in a public location - can itself be part of the deterrent logic. When violence is brazen, the message to bystanders and to the broader activist community is deliberate.
Whether Serbian authorities will pursue the criminal complaint filed by Voja's lawyer with the urgency the circumstances demand remains to be seen. The outcome of that process will say something consequential about the conditions under which civic activism can be practiced in the country.
