Serbs who have been protesting against the rule of President Aleksandar Vucic for the past six weeks on Wednesday marked the first anniversary of Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic’s murder.
Thousands of Serbs gathered in the capital, Belgrade, on Wednesday to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of the Kosovo Serb politician Oliver Ivanovic, whose murder has never been resolved.
As part of the rally, protesters took part in a silent, two-kilometre-long walk from Student Park to Saint Sava Orthodox temple in memory of the murdered politician.
“Tonight we will walk to the temple in honour of Oliver Ivanovic who was thinking with his own head and who fought until the end of his life for peace and coexistence of Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija,” Serbian actor Bane Trifunovic told the crowd at the start of the protest.
The leader of the Freedom, Democracy, Justice party was killed a year ago in the divided Kosovo town of Mitrovica after he had become increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Belgrade government.
During the march, upon reaching Slavija Square, protesters turned on their phone lights and lit up candles in memory of Ivanovic.
Police tried to stop protesters from gathering outside Saint Sava, where a stage was being prepared for tomorrow’s welcoming ceremony for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, the blockade was only short-lived, and in a peaceful atmosphere the crowd massed outside the church, lighting candles to pay their respects for the slain politician.
Protesters in Serbia have been gathering every Saturday for six weeks, rallying against what they perceive as the authoritarian policies of President Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party.
The protests were sparked by the assault on November 23 on an opposition politician, Borko Stefanovic, by unknown attackers in the southern town of Krusevac.
Ivanovic’s widow, Milena Ivanovic Popovic, said she would not attend the rally held in his memory because she was concerned about the “politicisation” of her late’s husband’s murder.
But the late politician’s brother, Miroslav, however, told the regional TV station N1 on Wednesday that he would attend any protest that raised the question of “who killed Oliver Ivanovic?”
Ivanovic was gunned down in front of his party’s offices in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica on January 16, 2018.
The Kosovo authorities in November 2018 arrested four individuals in relation to the case, later releasing one and remanding three in custody.
The Kosovo authorities also named Milan Radoicic, vice-president of the main Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb political party, Srpska Lista, as a suspect.
Radoicic avoided arrest on November 23 and moved to Serbia, where the authorities assert his innocence. He denies involvement in the murder.
Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic on Wednesday said that Serbia’s own investigation was examining the movements of “certain individuals” who had appeared in Kosovo, then left for an unspecified Western European country.
Once seen as a hardline nationalist, Ivanovic had evolved into a political moderate who advocated coexistence between Kosovo’s Serb minority and Albanian majority.
At the time of his death, he was being retried for ordering the murder of Kosovo Albanians during the war in Kosovo in 1999. He pleaded not guilty.
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