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Newsflash from Belgrade: Public Transport Scandal Causes Rise Against the System
Last year, Belgrade's mayor Dragan Đilas (a supposedly social-democratic politician and businessman who literally owns half of Belgrade, notable for his Third Way policies similar to the ones of the British New Labour, sometimes compared to New York's Michael Bloomberg) sold the rights to the installment of a new ticket system for Belgrade's public transport, based on electronic validation, to Apex Solution Technology, a highly shady firm with no previous records whatsoever, thought to be a phantom company, possibly orchestrated by Đilas himself.
In February this year, the new BusPlus system was finally introduced, and turned out to be highly unpopular for various reasons - fears about the violation of privacy, high prices, rigorous control, as well as the fact that such an important public matter and the profits from public transportation tickets were handed over to a private company, and a shady one at that. While Apex was nominally in subservient partnership with the publicly held Urban Transport Company, which manages the entire public transport and used to manage the ticket system before it was handed over, it quickly made sure to, with eager support of the city administration, step over all lawful borders and take full practical control of the public transportation system. Ticket controllers who used to work for the Urban Transport Company were forcibly transfered to Apex, where many of them were sacked and replaced with younger workers. Apex took it upon themselves to actually cancel the bus lines where they thought not enough people were paying the tickets, complete with ominous posters hanging in the buses saying "Your bus isn't coming? Think twice before deciding to freeload!", together with long, looming lists of penalties for "not obeying your duties" and the permissions Apex controllers have if they catch you not doing so.
It would all be relatively tolerable if many of those controllers weren't common thugs using their privileges to harass the citizens. There were many reported cases of them harassing and even beating up passengers, and I personally witnessed a group of 7-8 controllers in their twenties, one of which was sporting an authentic skinhead look, harassing an old Roma man on a station for no real reason. Another guy voiced his protest, and they threatened him into submission. Right afterwards, the skinhead guy kept walking across the station, menacingly pounding his fist into his palm and staring at the people waiting there while the rest of them were laughing. With the black shirts they wear as a part of their uniform, to many they are reminiscent to the fascist blackshirts and totalitarian regimes. BusPlus became a symbol of oppression and the right to step over any borders of law and decency as long as you have wealth and power. After various protests calling for the suspension of the BusPlus system and the return of all public transport assets and authority to the Urban Transport Company, championed by various citizens' groups and grassroots activists, including the Serbian branch of the 99% movement, and the subsequents boycotts, Apex has usurped the control of most of the Communal Police, a recently introduced public body theoretically dedicated to keeping Belgrade neighborhoods clean and orderly, and in practice serving more as a "civil watch", many of its officials being equally thuggish and sadistic as Apex controllers, and uses them as the "heavy artillery" in case a confrontation with disgruntled citizens goes awry, due to their greater legal authorities.
Today, Apex controllers and the Communal Police have beat up a college student who forgot his monthly ticket back home, and refused to exit the bus because he was late for the correction exam - if he failed it, he would have to restart the whole year.
Among many similar earlier incidents, this has caused a huge public outrage. A huge number of Belgraders are calling for the abolishment of the BusPlus system, an investigation and trial for the Apex management and the disbandment of the Communal Police. Some are even going as far to call for a boycott of the city authorities, or even a full-blown revolution. More protests are being prepared, and these are sure to attract even more people than before.
Comments
I'm not sure what to say here, other than I obviously support the common Belgrader.
I'm not sure what to say either, I'd say "sounds like fun", if it didn't... you know.
Not much to add, but when push comes to shove, I learned from helping at riot police training exercises that it's best to throw objects from a diagonal angle as they're less protected there.
This also applies to swordsmanship.
I see somebody got here before Alex: