Hundreds of thousands of Serbs ask the UN to investigate the use of an acoustic cannon at the Belgrade protests
Belgrade, Serbia – March 15, 2025: Thousands of people lit the flashlights and kept 15 minutes in memory of the victims of the roof of the station in Novi Sad. Photo: Roman Kadarjan / Alamy / Profimedia
A petition with almost 600,000 signatures was transmitted on Tuesday to the UN Bureau of Belgrade to request an international investigation on the alleged use by the police of an acoustic weapon during a demonstration last month, AFP reports.
On March 15, shortly after 19:00 local time, while hundreds of thousands of people manifested in Belgrade against corruption and for a rule of law, part of the crowd was included by a state of panic – according to several witnesses – of an unknown noise.
While the protesters kept a moment of silence, the crowd suddenly spread, for no apparent reason on a boulevard in the center of Belgrade. The opposition and the protesters have been accusing the police of using a Sonic (Lrad – Long Range Acoustic Device), a military device used to disperse the crowds, or a similar device.
Some protesters reported that they had the impression that they hear a sound similar to that of a plane on the way to collapse, and others compared it to the noise of a car that was heading at them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX29naAavfd0
The petition transmitted on Tuesday, at the initiative of the Kreniproman Political Movement (GO for Change), requires the opening of an independent international investigation, including its medical impact, and also requests that those who ordered, allowed and used such a weapon be referred to justice.
The number of signatures is a “proof of the degree of consciousness” of the Serbian society, he welcomed President Krenipmeni, Savo Manojlovic, who handed over the petition.
The Serbian authorities initially denied that they would hold an acoustic weapon, but photos published the day after the demonstration, which showed a police vehicle equipped with a device similar to an Lrad 450 acoustic device, forced them to change their discourse.
Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic confirmed that the police have such equipment, but denied its use, while President Aleksandar Vucic denounced “lies”.
Speculations around this type of device were resumed on Monday, after the former Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Cedomir Jovanovic (2003-2004), not knowing that he was talking live, explained on a television set that an acoustic weapon was really used.
“Something has made a sound like thunder. Whether it was the noise of a truck or a plane, it didn't matter. It wasn't meant to hurt, but just scare – like a car that comes to you,” he said, believing that the microphone is stopped.
Serbia is experiencing mass protest movements after the Novi Sad accident last November when at least 15 people died from collapse of a part of the railway station, recently renovated. Thousands of people, especially students, have come out of the street since then, asking the authorities for those who are guilty of tragedy to be held accountable, denouncing the high degree of corruption at the top of the political class. At the same time, the authorities in Belgrade – supported by Moscow – have accused external forces that would instrument the protests for changing power in Serbia.
President of Aleksandar Vucic, who was forced to change at the top of the government, said on Tuesday that Serbia was driven “by fear and terror in the last five months, but that, regardless of circumstances, the state should not fall and will not fall”, inviting the Serbs to gather in front of the building.
According to several Serbian media, Vucic convened a great assembly in the capital of the country on the occasion of setting up a new Propresidential Political Movement entitled “For the People and State”.
