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It all started with this action on Tuesday evening: The activist Aida Corovic throws two eggs at a mural by Ratko Mladić in the center of Belgrade. Plainclothes police, who apparently were guarding the graffiti posted by nationalists, intervene and arrest a Corovics mistress, and the activist herself is also taken away. The great sensation caused by the egg-throwing shows how much Serbian society is still divided. Because Ratko Mladić, the former commander in chief of the Bosnian Serb army, is a convicted war criminal. During the Bosnian War in the early 1990s, troops commanded by Mladić killed around 8,000 men and young people from the Srebrenica enclave. The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague sentenced the now 78-year-old to life imprisonment for genocide, among other things.Nevertheless, many Serbs still consider Mladić to be a war hero - and throwing an egg on his likeness is a provocation. After the action, numerous supporters of the egg thrower gathered in front of the graffiti.
Marko Oljaca, activist
»We invite everyone present to take part in further actions to remove the mural in the coming days.«
The Serbian Interior Minister announced that the police would maintain public order.
In addition, a long-standing ban on demonstrations in the vicinity of the mural is strictly enforced.