site.btaSerbian Lecturer Supporting Anti-government Protests Receives Death Threats

Assoc. Prof. Vukasin Slavkovic from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Kragujevac, who supports the anti-government protests in Serbia, has received threats on social media that he will be "caught by the Black Hand," regional television station N1 reported Tuesday. Assoc. Prof. Slavkovic reported the incident to the police.

"I received a message that was a little disturbing, saying that the 'Black Hand' would get to me, so I decided it was time to report it so that the prosecution service could deal with it in the coming period," Slavkovic told N1, adding that he had been the target of numerous acts of intimidation and threats since he supported the demands of students blocking faculties in Serbia.

The students took control of the country's higher education institutions and led protests that turned into mass demonstrations after an incident in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad, where on November 1, 2024, the roof of the recently renovated railway station collapsed, killing 16 people. In May, students demanded early parliamentary elections, and in the summer, peaceful demonstrations turned into clashes with the police, riots, acts of civil disobedience, and mass arrests.

Assoc. Prof. Slavkovic is not the first university lecturer to be mentioned in the Black Hand's threats. Recently, Smiljana Milinkov, head of the Department of Media Studies at the University of Novi Sad's Faculty of Philosophy, also received death threats to the faculty's official email address.

The Black Hand was an extreme Serbian nationalist organization founded in 1911 under the influence of the Greater Serbian idea. Its immediate goal was to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia through acts of terrorism.