City authorities have announced a proposal to form the Belgrade Security Service as an “extended arm of the police”. The proposal came on 18 December, just days before the student and farmer protests at Slavija Square, which gathered 102,000 people according to the Public Assembly Archive (or exactly 29,000 according to Ministry of Interior estimates, and over 200,000 according to telecommunications operators’ data, whichever you prefer). In any case – the largest number of citizens in the history of local demonstrations.
The day before the protest, the President of the Republic stated that he could send the “Cobras” (a military unit responsible for official security) to “scatter” the protesters. The Cobras were not, of course, “sent” – and experts emphasise that they are not under the president’s command anyway, but rather the General Staff’s. Nevertheless, the protest held on 22 December was not secured by police, just as they were nowhere to be found when thugs attacked protesters in Belgrade Waterfront, which raises suspicion. There were no nervous men in black balaclavas at the protest held at Slavija, but who would have responded if they had appeared? Meanwhile, “impatient citizens” have continued to drive their cars into people who are blocking roads in Belgrade and elsewhere, paying tribute to the victims of corruption and negligence who died in Novi Sad; and so far this has gone unpunished.
Let’s add that the very City Assembly session where this proposal will be voted on was secured by private security – more precisely, “dangerous guys” from Atlas Security prevented dissatisfied citizens from breaking into the City Assembly on the morning of 25 December. Anyone reading this who is even slightly familiar with political turmoil in Serbia cannot help but remember the situation when private security in Novi Sad in 2022 endangered the life of Milorad Ljeskovac, who had a security guard kneeling on his neck after knocking him to the ground during demonstrations against the adoption of the General Urban Plan for Novi Sad in 2022.
The proposal to form the Belgrade Security Service would have aroused public suspicion even if circumstances were different. In the given situation, the proposal intensifies tensions.
Petrović: By law, Belgrade cannot establish a security service
Is it known what kind of service this is and whether Belgrade has any legal right to form it? Is this in line with those provisions of the 2022 Draft Law on Internal Affairs that civil society managed to prevent, which would have given groups of civilians without formal police training authority on par with police powers? Ultimately, how well-founded are citizens’ fears that these will actually be thugs?
We discussed all of this with Predrag from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, an organisation that has been dealing with security issues for over two and a half decades.
Based on what we could hear from Aleksandar Šapić, that is, how he described the role of the Belgrade Security Service, we can say that this is actually an illegal initiative, for several reasons.
Firstly, the city of Belgrade is not authorised to form any administrative bodies that would be in charge of public security. The city of Belgrade has clearly defined competencies in the Law on the Capital City, and according to that law, the City of Belgrade is responsible for maintaining communal order and therefore has the ability to form the Communal Police, or militia, which Belgrade already has.
Additionally, the Law on the Basic Organisation of Security Services states that there are only three security services in Serbia, which are BIA, VBA and VOA (Security Information Agency, Military Security Agency and Military Intelligence Agency). In Serbia, it is forbidden to establish and operate security services outside the provisions of this law.
It is mentioned that this will actually be private security.
We have the Law on Private Security, which also states that private security cannot perform security tasks that are under the exclusive jurisdiction of state bodies. In this case, we are talking about police jurisdiction. The police have exclusive jurisdiction over maintaining public order and peace. Here, therefore, we have some three anchor points that indicate that this is an illegal initiative: it is not allowed to form additional security services in Serbia under other regulations, the City of Belgrade is not competent for the announced security tasks, and private security cannot perform police duties.
But, besides that, a big problem is that we actually don’t know why Belgrade needs this service at all.
Šapić himself said at the end of March this year that Belgrade is the safest metropolis in this part of Europe. Other government representatives have also indicated that there “has never been less crime” both in Belgrade and in Serbia. Why, then, is it necessary to now allocate additional funds for people, technology, equipment and software, if it would improve security in the city? Why improve security if Belgrade is already secure? If so, it would definitely be a waste of resources.
When you want to improve security, you should always first conduct a security risk assessment, based on which you decide what physical or technical protection measures should be applied. Of course, not all risks are the same everywhere. In the territory of Belgrade, for example, there are areas that are less risky, and those that are more risky. Despite this, we see that a universal model of security improvement will be applied here, where this security service will be formed, with new personnel; that all schools and kindergartens, as I remember, as Šapić said, will get video surveillance and software for recognising weapons and hard objects, I don’t know, pistols and so on. I really haven’t heard of any children in kindergarten carrying hard objects that can serve as weapons, or pistols, so it’s really incomprehensible what all this will do for schools and kindergartens. Even the situation is not the same in all schools, and now we learn that everyone will get this video surveillance and software. Besides that, many schools have video surveillance, and some have security.
All of this therefore really seems not only illegal, but also completely purposeless.
So what is all this for?
If we try to find some rational logic, it seems that the goal of this idea is to pump money out of the budget and redirect it to some private companies that will then probably provide technical and physical protection services. These are not small funds, which is why this is the usual way political parties pump money out of the state budget, through private security jobs, and that’s probably why Šapić wants to centralise it all. Because, in the city of Belgrade, both in municipalities and in schools, private security already exists.
I don’t see any logic in centralising it all, especially considering that the Law on Private Security states that even for engaging private security, it is first necessary to conduct a risk assessment, and then develop a security plan. Of course, the security plan should specifically relate to what is being secured. Since private security can be responsible for providing protection to persons, property and business operations, it must be specifically defined what is to be protected, after which a security risk assessment and security plan for that is made. This universal approach is not purposeful.
Who is in charge and who is allowed to conduct security risk assessments? Is it the Ministry of Internal Affairs or can anyone do it, for their own whim?
Not just anyone can conduct a security assessment. So if it’s about public order and peace and public security, then the police are responsible for that, and if it’s about private security, that is, protection of persons, property, business operations and facilities, then that is done by a private security company that has a licence to prepare that risk assessment.
This is a special type of licence and the rules are clearly defined by law regarding who can and under what conditions obtain that licence.
Since the city is not a private entity, by definition then the city should not be secured by a private agency, right? Is it okay for what we saw before the current session to happen, that Atlas Security was engaged?
They have the right to do that. For many years now, private security has been securing facilities of various state institutions. That’s not unusual and isn’t necessarily bad practice. We can now talk about the professionalism of private security conduct, but engaging private companies to provide physical and technical protection services to state institutions is not illegal.
What would be unusual would be for the city of Belgrade to centralise that security, that is, for the City of Belgrade to actually form an agency that would provide private security services, private protection for schools and kindergartens, which is what, it seems, Šapić announced. The whole logic of engaging private security is that you engage some private entity that specialises in these tasks and in that way relieve your organisation, your company (in this case the City) of these tasks. That’s why it’s completely illogical and irrational for the City of Belgrade, whose competencies are listed in the Law on the City of Belgrade, to now enter into private security business. This might be legally feasible, although not under this name and not in the way Šapić described it, but it’s completely irrational and purposeless for the City of Belgrade to deal with this, because, let’s repeat, it neither has jurisdiction nor is specialised for something like this.
Should the republican and city Ministry of Internal Affairs react to this and have they reacted so far?
Well, as far as I know, no. Ivica Dačić, I think, commented that he’s not familiar with this initiative, which is also catastrophic, if I followed and understood that correctly from the media, given that Šapić said he wants to relieve police work. It’s simply incredible that he’s relieving police work by forming some service without the knowledge of the Ministry of Internal Affairs that will then practically take over part of the work from the police.
This is really incredible, catastrophic, because then we have the formation of some kind of para-police security services. If I followed correctly, Šapić said that it will cooperate with the police, that is, that the police and communal militia will help this service.
What’s the purpose of this security service if other services will help it again? That’s then completely irrational and, I say, purposeless.
It would be much more rational to use existing police resources. Serbia has twice as many police officers as, for example, the USA, and three times more than Finland, if observed per 100,000 inhabitants. But, the Ministry of Internal Affairs poorly manages and organises these resources. The concept of community policing, which implies that police officers maintain a security sector or patrol area for a longer period and continuously monitor the situation in it, and develop relationships with various actors in that environment exists in Serbia, but much more on paper than in practice. It’s similar with the school police officer. Besides that, an insufficient number of police officers have certification for working with minors. How will private security then perform that job better than the police?
The public associates the announcements about forming the Belgrade Security Service with current protests, remembering how private security services were violent towards students during the protests in 2000, if I’m not mistaken. Would you comment on that?
What we know from the previous period about the way the current government functions is that the introduction of the Belgrade Security Service, if it happens, will certainly represent irrational spending of funds and that these jobs will be given to companies close to the ruling party. So it’s about the established way of redirecting the city of Belgrade’s funds, that is, all Belgrade citizens’ money, into private pockets. We can also conclude that there is a high possibility that this service will also be misused for political purposes. Its name doesn’t indicate what it will actually do, but its very name “security service” gives it some greater significance. Additionally, if they are uniformed, with badges, with unclear authorities and jurisdictions, all of this can bring unrest to the public and cause reasonable suspicion among citizens. The Law on Private Security prohibits performing private security tasks in a way that interferes with the work of state bodies and disturbs the peace of citizens.
At the beginning of the nineties, Belgrade Police was not on the side of Milošević’s policies, so its significance and scope of action were reduced through personnel policies and restructuring. Does the public have reason to draw parallels between the then and possible current political interference in the work of city police in circumstances when there are many dissatisfied citizens on the street?
So far we don’t have sufficient information that this is happening. It’s not impossible that it will lead to that because the SNS is known for going with these small steps and applying the “boiling frog” method. It’s not impossible that tomorrow through some amendments to the law they will further expand the authority of this service through the back door and practically take over some kind of police jurisdiction. But, I say, so far this is in the domain of speculation.
SNS has a wide range of other actors and means by which it tries to control the situation, which by definition act intimidatingly, but which have recently proved insufficiently “effective”. By this I mean hooligan-criminal groups. In a situation where you have a very large number of citizens on the street, I’m not sure that an ordinary person, and even an SNS voter would be willing to enter into some serious conflicts with citizens. That’s why we see that mostly SNS officials, and not ordinary membership, enter into physical confrontations with protesting citizens.
Predrag Petrović
Click here to subscribe to ESSF newsletters in English and or French.