March 2025.
As part of the program Regional Initiative for combating disinformation “Western Balkans Combatting disinformation Center: Exposing malicious influences through fact-checking and Analytical Journalism“, we present you a new analysis of fake news and disinformation narratives.
The Ministry of the Interior responds with a denial! The sound cannon was not used: Here’s what the ANTI-DRONE gun looks like
https://informer.rs/politika/vesti/1000000/informerrs
On March 15th, the largest protest in the history of Serbia took place in the capital. Unofficial estimates suggest that over 300,000 people filled the streets of Belgrade, all protesting against the corrupt government, which, five months after the canopy collapse, still hasn’t released the full documentation or fulfilled the students’ demands.
During the fifteen-minute silence to honor the victims who died in the canopy collapse, the citizens scattered and a stampede ensued. Following this, information surfaced that the government had used a sound cannon to break up the protest and spread panic among the people.
All pro-government media in Serbia commented on the matter and reported that a sound cannon was not used. The Ministry of the Interior immediately responded: “The MUP has never used, nor does it use, equipment that is not legally authorized.” Then, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić also spoke out, denying that a sound cannon was used. Meanwhile, a photograph surfaced showing a device on the terrace of the Presidency that resembled a sound cannon. However, President Vučić stated that it was an anti-drone gun, used to prevent drones from flying in restricted zones.
Several days after the protest, the citizens of Serbia still had no clear information about the controversial device. Two days after the protest, Interior Minister Ivica Dačić denied that the MUP possessed a sound cannon. “Now they’re talking about Vortex. What Vortex? We don’t have that. It’s even in the experimental phase. They’re mentioning the LRAD 1000. We don’t have that. Now they’re mentioning a wireless LRAD. We don’t have that either,” said the police minister.
However, the very next day, a session of the Serbian Parliament’s Committee for Defense and Internal Affairs was held, during which the topic of the “sound cannon” was discussed. It was then that Dačić, responding to a question from opposition MP Miroslav Aleksić, first admitted that the MUP does indeed have the “LRAD 100X“. Clearly, Serbian officials had not reached an internal agreement, nor had they aligned on the information they would release to the public. As a result, the cycle of unchecked information continued, with the police minister once again changing his statement, now claiming that a device had been used to warn participants in the public gathering when it was time to disperse.
“As for the sound, the police only use sound devices for warnings, and we’ve stated that from the very first day. I also don’t know what these new details are, and what the news is about the police acquiring acoustic devices, as I stated yesterday at the committee that the police acquired certain equipment in 2021, which is specifically intended for alerting large numbers of people over greater distances,” Dačić added. However, the police did not say this from the very beginning; they had initially stated that they did not possess a sound cannon.
For the citizens of Serbia, accurate and timely information became a utopia. This series of contradictory statements and confusing information created an atmosphere where it became almost impossible to get a clearer picture of what actually happened on March 15th. Unfortunately, the citizens were left in complete uncertainty when it came to the facts. All attempts to get to the truth were burdened by constant changes in official stances and inaccurate statements.
To illustrate this, we quote the Minister of the Interior: “Now we have a whole array of lies here, where one lie follows another, and you can’t even figure out what you are denying, or what is actually going on“.
Author: Nataša Stanojević
