a lot of you responded how youve never heard of srebrenica before. the best thing you could do, is educate yourselves on it, and spread the word. im trying my best to do it. the 8000+ innocent bosniak muslims, and their grieving families, deserve no less from me or anyone else.

today is july 11th, 2018. 23 years ago, a genocide was commited in Europe, the biggest one since the holocaust, in which the serbs raped and killed countless women and children, murdered over 8000 men ranging from a 2 day old baby to a 95 yr old man. they burried their limbs in separate and far away hidden mass graves, to make it harder for their families to identify and properly bury them.

its been 23 years, and on every july 11th since 1995., a couple hundred more victims get to have their burial. some families are lucky enough to find two limbs of their loved ones. most get to bury only a leg or an arm of their father, brother, uncle, grandpa. thousands are still waiting even for that.

its been 23 years, and the Serbs still deny commiting these horrid crimes, despite the 1 hour and 11 minutes of unedited footage their soldiers filmed in Srebrenica that is avalible even on youtube.

its been 23 years, and the world is still blind to the horrors that played out in the heart of Europe on the brink of 21st century.

its been 23 years, how many more do have to pass before everyone educates themselves on it?

July 11th, 1995. Remember this date. Be ashamed, as I am, of what was allowed to happen not that long ago.

Spread the word. Srebrenica and its horrors must not be ignored nor forgotten. God knows, the victims and their families deserve that much of us.

It is 2019. This year 33 victims (or their remains) will be buried.

So after days of pleading with other countries to spred awareness about the current situation in Serbia, a tweet with a video showing police brutality got spread:

And a lot of the responses were:

Apparently only problems worth talking about are those of first-world countries. And it seems that to a lot of people Europe will always remain just England, France, Germany and Italy. And let all of us living in small countries oppresed by totalitarian regimes rot ig.

I am sick of this selective activism.

And Fuck America.

So yes, Serbia does have it extremely bad. Just because it’s a small country doesn’t mean it’s issues are irrelevant, and anyone who feels they can dismiss this shit because these aren’t Americans can fuck off. You clearly don’t care about other people.

Please reblog this version of the post because no one knows anything about Serbia and they are experiencing their own Trump reign.

I hate my country. 🙄🤦‍♂️

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SERBIA?

TL;DR: we’re living under a dictatorship. people are currently protesting the deaths caused by decisions the government made while prioritising the election over human lives. mainstream news are making it seem like the protesters are hooligans who are protesting new safety measures and not the dictatorship they refuse to even acknowledge.

THE LEAD-UP

here’s a brief list of things that caused the people to protest:

the elections have been rigged since the moment aleksandar vučić became president. not even in a relatively subtle way like in the usa (gerrymandering), but by literally replacing sacks of voting papers with ones that are voting for sns (srpska narodna stranka, the president’s party)

we were lied to about when the first covid-19 case appeared in serbia. the government withheld information from us because it benefited them.

also, about a week before the lockdown, the president made fun of the virus, encouraging people to “go shop in milano if they want”. when the situation got serious, he shifted the blame to the people.

hospitals all around the country were and still are severely underfunded. they’re reusing masks, don’t have enough space for all the patients, and the tests we’re still given aren’t accurate.

the lockdown was lifted prematurely because of the parliamentary elections. if you look up “serbia covid19 cases” on google, you’ll see that the second wave started around june 21st, which is when the election was.

right after the election was over, the government set extreme safety measures, including: police enforced lockdown fri-sun, an attempt to force all belgrade students out of their dorms during exam season, etc.

THE PROTESTS

last night (july 7th), there was a huge unorganized protest outside of the belgrade parliament building.

as expected, the police turned it into a violent protest. they used tear gas 26 times, attacked people who weren’t even protesting, and used unnecessary force against those who were. a man was choked the same way george floyd was.

only n1 (cnn’s channel) actually informed people that this was happening, and their website was down all night last night. every other network was airing their usual program, since they’re controlled by the government.

the people got into the parliament building a few times, but were ultimately forced out violently by the police.

there were protests in other cities too, but they weren’t as large.

rts (the most watched channel in the country) is putting all the blame on the protesters and making it seem as if they’re protesting the new safety measures, and not the dictatorship of aleksandar vučić.

every other international news source is pretty much doing the same.

WHAT NOW?

the protests will continue. in case they’re successful, there will be another election, one that won’t put only sns members in the parliament (they make up more than 70% as of right now).

in case they’re not successful, we’ll be expecting a change of the constitution that will state that there’s no limit to how many terms a president can have. we’ll live under complete dictatorship.

the most you, outside of serbia, can do is share correct information and spread awareness about what’s happening.

reblog and share this post, share other posts (on instagram especially) made by serbian people, call out false information when you see it.

feel free to share + repost these images. stand with serbia.

[Image Description: Six Images detailing Serbia’s current political situation in regards to COVID-19 and the government’s careless response. Each picture has a blue background with blue text on it, as well as a red heading.]

“Do not ignore what is going on in Serbia” In a smaller text underneath you can read the author’s url, @writerinsthedark.

What Happened:

The election:

Post-election:

July 2020:

How to help:

Stand with Serbia.

Why Do People Put Locks On Bridges To Declare Their Love?

The first “love locks” bridge was not in Paris, which has the most famous example, but in Serbia! Specifically in a town called Vrnjačka Banja. Shortly before the World War I, a young man and woman fell in love in Vrnjačka Banja. They would meet every night at the Most Ljubavi bridge. But the man went into the military, and while abroad, he met and fell in love with someone else. The young woman died of heartbreak, or so the story goes. Superstitious local women began going to the bridge, writing the names of themselves and their lovers on padlocks, and locking them to the bridge, in the hope that it would bind their paramours to home.

The tradition was slowly forgotten after World War I. Until a Serbian poet, Desanka Maksimović, heard the story and wrote a poem about it. The tradition was revived but only in Vrnjačka Banja.

So how did love lock bridges become a worldwide phenomenon? It probably comes from a single Italian writer named Federico Moccia. He wrote a book, published in 2006, called I Want You. It featured a couple who put a love lock on a lamp post on Rome’s 2100-year-old Ponte Milvio bridge. The book took off, and a movie was made, and the rest as they say is history!