The Tvrđava Movement and the Right to Water initiative toured the Danube and Ježava rivers in Smederevo together. We witnessed firsthand what rivers mean to urban environments—and how they are threatened by industrial pollution and untreated municipal wastewater.
At the panel “The Art of Resistance”, organized by the Center for Girls in Niš, Miroslava Nikolić spoke on behalf of the political ecology organization Polekol. Together with activist Marija Srdić from Novi Sad and activists from the Karton Revolucija in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Adi Selman and Nedim Musić, she shared experiences about how she began her activism, what motivates her to persist, the obstacles activists face, how they overcome them, and the current struggles they are engaged in, both at the local and regional levels.
From September 5th to 7th, forty women—members of the Women’s Network for Nature and the Environment—gathered on Kopaonik for a three-day seminar titled “Thirsty for Justice – Women’s Voice for Water.” The event focused on highly relevant topics: the right to water, climate change, and local struggles to preserve natural resources.
To experience the atmosphere of the Pliva springs is to be reminded of the world and the values that nature defenders are fighting to protect! The Pliva is one of the largest sources of drinking water in Europe. Unfortunately, this environment is also under threat of destruction. While old stone houses and a few cottages do not significantly harm the landscape and ecosystem, their very existence is now overshadowed by the threat of two small hydropower plants. SHPP “Jovići” is maliciously planned at a fragile rock gorge, cherished by both locals and visitors. The other, SHPP “Kužo 1,” threatens one of the larger springs, planned just a few dozen meters away from it.
The proposed amendments to the Criminal Code dangerously expand criminal repression: they criminalize common protest tactics such as road blockades, thereby threatening the right to peaceful assembly; they introduce a vague criminal offense of publishing materials, which could easily be arbitrarily applied to journalists, activists, and citizens; they risk downgrading serious acts of rape to the lighter category of “sexual intercourse without consent,” contrary to the spirit of the Istanbul Convention and to the detriment of victims; and with the definition of a “malicious computer program,” they abandon objective criteria and introduce the need to prove subjective intent, undermining legal certainty.
We took part in the citizens’ assembly of the Municipality of Sopot, one of the thirstiest municipalities in Serbia. Under the slogan “Water, our right, not our treasure,” citizens demanded concrete measures to address the long-standing problems of water distribution and supply during the summer months.
