Protesters using instructions from Belgrade!

Protesters and members of the plenum who have been blocking cities across FBiH in recent days are distributing leaflets with detailed instructions, according to a manual for civil disobedience drafted in Belgrade, the BH News Agency Patria (NAP) has learned.

These are instructions from the CANVAS group (Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies), based in Serbia, which were developed based on the book “From Dictatorship to Democracy”.

Among other things, the instructions state that organizers should film staged violence against the crowd and provide these video clips to the media to encourage a larger number of protesters by creating unrest.

The application of this instruction is evident in the last two days, when protesters have been attracting media attention with incidents where drivers allegedly hit protesters. It is evident that this has happened twice already at Sarajevo protests, and in both cases, we have videos of these incidents on the YouTube website.

The instructions also state that video clips showing support from the police for the protesters should be made, thus trying to win over the police to the side of the protesters (showering police with flowers, hugging police officers...)

One of the instructions is to create video clips that portray the protests as a big public celebration (singing and dancing in the street). Instructors noted with this instruction that this evokes sympathy from a larger number of people, even the undecided, who then feel the need to join the protesters to massify the protest.

All of the above has been widely seen on the streets across the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Among other things, the instructions include recommendations for pressuring officials (mocking officials, harassing them, picketing their premises).