Due to violence by criminals and the unlawful conduct by the police, CRTA’s Election Observation Mission in Mionica has been suspended.

Since the safety of our observers has been seriously endangered, we have decided to abolish the CRTA’s Observation Mission in Mionica and withdraw our observers from all polling stations and mobile teams.

We made this decision after a mobile team of CRTA’s female observers in Mionica was attacked by a group of unidentified men. They blocked the car from moving and attempted to break the windows of the car in which the two women were seated – all in front of the police, who did not react. The police neither protected the observers nor checked the identities of the attackers.

Moreover, we witnessed a tacit collusion between the police and the attackers, who – through their appearance, behavior, and luxury vehicles (many with Bosnian and Belgrade license plates) – give the impression of belonging to organized crime. At the moment when our colleagues were attacked in the parking lot in front of the D_lux restaurant, around 30 such vehicles were parked there, and the area was filled with aggressive men.

The police officers who witnessed the attack pretended not to see anything and “gaslit” the representatives of our mission who soon arrived at the scene. Police officers at the station also refused the explicit request of our lawyer to produce an official report on the incident.

Since early morning, Mionica has been full of men in baseball caps, almost “uniformed” in black, moving in larger groups, and our observers are not the only victims of attacks and threats.

Although we are withdrawing our observers, CRTA’s legal team remains on the ground and will be available to citizens of Mionica whose voting rights may be endangered.