Artists and Cultural Workers Stage Massive Protests in Serbia

On Saturday, June 22nd 2013, over 800 cultural workers and artists went out to protest in the Square of the Republic in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, as well as in Novi Sad, Niš and Vršac. Such a protest on a massive scale is almost unprecedented in the country. These protests did not come out of thin air. A lot of accumulated anger and dissatisfaction with many socio-economic and political issues in recent years culminated yesterday.

The most important structural, social and political causes for the protest are: corruption and nepotism in the field of culture and non-transparent redistribution of the resources; poverty of workers in the field of culture; the change of the government from democrats to conservatives on in the Republic of Serbia and the cutting the funds for so called “non-patriotic” art; the fact that freelance artists and cultural workers are not able to renew their health insurance, because social benefits have not been paid since January 2013 by the cultural department of the city of Belgrade (governed by the Democrats).

Artleaks