Belgrade queer collective and Pussy Riot stage protest performance for students, face online smears

Kvir zbor, a Belgrade queer activist collective, and members of the Russian feminist art group Pussy Riot staged a joint action in Belgrade on 20 September in support of the students who have been protesting in Serbia. Footage of the performance, in which participants wore balaclavas and carried flares, drew a storm of reactions on social media.

The organisers described the action as “an act of solidarity with the students protesting in Serbia and with all those who refuse to give in to intimidation and repression”.

Pussy Riot members were in Belgrade for ne:Bitef, a programme held the same day at dozens of locations across the city as part of the 60th edition of Bitef, the Belgrade International Theatre Festival. Founded in Moscow in 2011, the group is known for protest performances against Vladimir Putin’s government and for women’s and LGBT+ rights; several members, including Maria Alyokhina, were jailed over their 2012 performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Supporting the student movement is not new for Kvir zbor. At its June protest in Belgrade, one banner read “Students are winning”, and member Milan Bjelanović said at the time that the collective backed the students and their demand for early parliamentary elections. The student-led protests have been a major force in Serbian politics, and the government refers to their supporters as “blokaderi” (blockaders).

A video montage of the performance and other clips spread online with the caption “These are the blockaders’ representatives: do you want them running the country?” Some users on X called the participants “sectarians” and “Satanists”, and parts of the pro-government press ran the footage under headlines such as “They desecrated churches in Russia, now they back an LGBTQ+ ‘zbor’”.

Coverage in Serbian media, including the daily Politika and the tabloid Alo, focused largely on these social media reactions.

Source: politika.rs, aloonline.me. English adaptation: gay-serbia.com.