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Serbia: Protest flags

Red blooded hand flag
Ferrari fan flag

See also:

Red blooded hand flag

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 16 February 2025
based on photo located by Esteban Rivera, 3 February 2025 and https://commons.wikimedia.org

On November 1, 2024 the concrete canopy of the train station of Novi Sad collapsed, killing 15 people and seriously injuring two more. People demanded resignation of those responsible but the government refused to, sparking protests across the nation against alleged corruption. During the protests a red blooded hand flag has been seen (https://twitter.com/i/status/1880221036249248011), meaning the hands of government officials are stained with blood.
Sources: https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/milan-vucevic-milan-djuric-novi-sad/33297637.html
and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIKGQriUGb4

Esteban Rivera, 3 February 2025

So far, the bloodied hands have been appearing more on various demonstration posters than on the flags. Their original appearance was in the form of the gloves dipped in red paint and worn by the protesters. There were also the attempts to discredit the use of the symbol, such as the comparison by Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center office in Jerusalem, with its alleged use by the supporters of Hamas; although his statement was given much publicity by the pro-regime media for a while, it was quickly dismissed as ignorant (and likely misinformed) by the protesters and their supporters. Another attempt to counter its use was a short-lived pro-regime campaign of using a modified symbol, a red hand showing the middle finger sign, said to mean the people's resistance to an attempted "colour revolution", but was quickly abandoned when a counter-explanation to this was announced - that those who use it do have blood on their hands, but don't mind having it.

More photos of the flag:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Belgrade_protests_2025-01-24_-_6.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Belgrade_protests_2025-01-24_-_7.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Belgrade_protests_2025-01-24_-_8.jpg
https://apnews.com/article/serbia-students-vucic-protest

As can be seen, the details like the precise shape of the hand, its orientation and size, vary a lot from one particular flag to another; there were also several which looked like the one in the image presented here. Typically, the flag has the width larger than the length, to match the vertical orientation of the hand, although the whole can be rotated for 90 degrees, with the hand oriented horizontally then and the length being greater than the width [as was reported by Esteban]. There were also several cases of the flags with the length larger than the width and vertical orientation of the hand.
Tomislav Todorovic, 16 February 2025

Ferrari fan flag

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 4 June 2023

This version of the Ferrari fan flag was used by some fans from Belgrade during the protests 1996-97 against the election steal performed by Milosevic regime as the imposed repeating of local elections wherever the opposition had won, in order to force the desirable results. The flag owner and his friends had intended to use the flag as a rallying point of their own, but it quickly attracted media attention and, after the protesters were accused of "waving the foreign flags" by the pro-regime media, inspired the subsequent use of numerous foreign flags, all in accordance with the protests' motto "Belgrade is the world" (Beograd je svet). The flag was used again during several pro-democracy protests in the 2000s and 2010s, as well as during the 2023 protests against the increasing violence in the society and its promotion by the pro-regime media, which were triggered by two mass murders which took place in Belgrade and Mladenovac in May this year. This last reappearance of the flag has attracted a great media attention, reminiscing its original use. Source: B92.net website: https://www.b92.net/bbc/index.php?yyyy=2023&mm=06&dd=02&nav_id=2344119
Tomislav Todorovic, 4 June 2023

Two photos of this flag, taken at two different occasions, can be found here:
https://pescanik.net/protesti-i-sta-posle-njih

The first of these (full color) was taken in December 2018, at the protests known as "1 out of 5 millions" ("1 od 5 miliona") after their motto, which symbolized the supposed number of supporters throughout the country; the protests were sparked by attacks by the regime supporters against the opposition activists, which led to serious injuries of several attacked people. The second photo (black and white) was taken in December 1996, at the already mentioned protests against the election steal by the Milosevic regime.

The flag is being used again at the ongoing protests sparked by the collapse of the concrete canopy of the Novi Sad railway station, which happened on 2024-11-01, shortly after its opening which followed a supposedly thorough reconstruction. The protesters are demanding the publishing of complete documentation related to the reconstruction, which is supposed to include the evidence of corruptive activities, as well as the trials for all suspects. Numerous attacks against peaceful protesters in daily vigils for the victims, which begin every day at 11:52 (the moment of collapse) and last for 15 minutes (the number of dead victims), have helped amass the protests even more, adding the trials for all attackers to the list of demands. The flag was viewed in the political talk show "Impression of the Week" ("Utisak nedelje"), which was broadcasted on Nova S television channel on 2025-01-19. The news report which displayed the flag was originally broadcasted on N1 television channel, on one evening between 2025-01-09 and 2025-01-16 - it was not possible to determine the exact date from the program, but it must have been within that time frame, for the "impressions" offered to the spectators for voting were collected then (they are standardly being collected from one Thursday to the following one and then prepared to be presented in the show on Sunday). The flag can be seen @1:11:43-1:11:46 in the following video, which is the complete recording of the show: https://mreza.rs/utisak-nedelje/utisak-nedelje-19-januar-2025-cela-emisija/

The original news report has the caption "BEOGRAD" i.e. "Belgrade", which determines the location.
Tomislav Todorovic, 13 February 2025

Another photo of the flag was taken in Kragujevac on 2025-02-15, when the protesters from all over Serbia had gathered to mark the Statehood Day: https://pescanik.net/kragujevac-transparenti
Tomislav Todorovic, 16 February 2025