Tražimo da EXIT festival stavi svoje ime uz zahtev za slobodu i pravdu/We demand that EXIT festival  positions itself side by side with the demand for freedom and justice

We, former organisers, EXIT Festival collaborators and a long time festival goers are asking from the current festival leaders to speak out about the latest events in Novi Sad and Serbia and to condemn: 

• police and Zandarmerija’s abhorrent use of force and  beating of citizens
• obvious and documented use of criminal and extremist groups under the guidance of Security Services, with the aim to provoke disorder and create chaos at peaceful citizen protests
• unfounded arrest of activist, workers rights activist and speaker at the protest,  Miran Pogačar and all others who have been unlawfully detained and kept in detention
• hate speech against protesters used by the President, former Prime Minister, Mayor, Police Minister and others in power, as well as lies they spread about protesters 
• beatings of non-government controlled media journalists and preventing them to report about the violence used on protesters.

In this difficult moment, we request that EXIT, the only major festival in the world festival that rose as a form of protest, positions itself side by side with the demand for freedom and justice, freedom of speech and thought, the right for public control of public health and against lies, censorship, manipulation and violence. We demand that EXIT informs its international partners – artists, agents and media, that we are not protesting in Serbia because of covid measures, but against evidenced and calculated manipulation of the pandemic in order to gain short-term political power for the leading apparatus. These are not the issues of politics, these are the questions of defending basic human values and rights. Serbia has to and can do better, or in the words of David Bowie, “Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming”.