Serbian police ban cultural festival with Kosovo as pressure mounts on liberal voices

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbian police on Thursday banned a festival that promotes cultural exchange with Kosovo in a sign of growing nationalism and government pressure on liberal voices in the Balkan country.

A police statement cited security concerns as the reason to ban the Mirdita, dobar dan event that was due to start later on Thursday in Belgrade with a theater show from Kosovo.

Serbia does not recognize the 2008 declaration of independence by its former province, which is overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian. The Mirdita, dobar dan festival, whose name means “hello” in Albanian and Serbian, is organized by youth groups from Serbia and Kosovo seeking to bridge ethnic divisions created by a 1998-99 war and the postwar tensions.

Organizers in Serbia, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights group, said that Serbian police violated the country's constitution, its own and European laws: “It is a basic duty of the state to secure the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the law and to sanction all those who limit or violate those freedoms and citizens' rights.”

The group added that police did not allow the bus with participants to enter Belgrade and ordered that it return to Kosovo under police escort.

The police ban came after several dozen right-wing extremists gathered outside the festival venue on Thursday, seeking to prevent its holding while waving Serbian flags. Police said they wanted to prevent “danger to the security of people and property and to public peace and order on a larger scale.”

A statement said that the anti-festival gathering is also banned.

Liberal groups criticized the police decision.

“With the ban on ‘Mirdita,’ Serbia and its institutions sided with the hooligans and the deepest ethno-nationalist darkness,” prominent human rights activist Natasa Kandic said on X. “No longer can a debate about reconciliation or a protest against glorification of war criminals be organized in Serbia. A black hole.”

The Movement of Free Citizens party urged the Interior Ministry to revoke the ban also saying the authorities have sided with the extremists who are opposed to regional reconciliation.

Several government officials have sharply criticized the festival in the past several days, describing it as anti-Serb. While the festival has been held alternatively in Serbia and Kosovo for the past decade, this year's ban in Serbia illustrates a general toughening of the government's stance toward its critics.

Earlier this week, authorities banned a Bosnian actor and author from entering Serbia, saying he was a threat to national security, and deported him back to Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital. In the past months, Serbia's independent and investigative journalists have complained of increased legal pressure and threats.

Serbia is formally seeking entry into the European Union but the increasingly authoritarian government of populist President Aleksandar Vucic has steadily drifted away from the EU's pro-democracy values while nurturing close ties with Russia and China.

Right-wing extremists gather on a street in central Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, June 27, 2024. Serbian police on Thursday banned a festival that promotes cultural exchange with Kosovo, in a sign of growing nationalism and government pressure on liberal voices in the Balkan country. The police ban came after several dozen right-wing extremists gathered outside the festival venue, seeking to prevent its holding while waving Serbian flags. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

Right-wing extremists gather on a street in central Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, June 27, 2024. Serbian police on Thursday banned a festival that promotes cultural exchange with Kosovo, in a sign of growing nationalism and government pressure on liberal voices in the Balkan country. The police ban came after several dozen right-wing extremists gathered outside the festival venue, seeking to prevent its holding while waving Serbian flags. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic)

TORONTO (AP) — Canada's second largest airline, WestJet, said it canceled 407 flights affecting 49,000 passengers after the maintenance workers union announced it went on strike.

The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association said its members started to strike Friday evening because the airline’s “unwillingness to negotiate with the union” made it inevitable.

The surprise strike affecting international and domestic flights came after the federal government issued a ministerial order for binding arbitration on Thursday. That followed two weeks of turbulent discussions with the union on a new deal.

WestJet said it will continue to park aircraft through Sunday for the long weekend culminating in Canada Day on Monday. The airline has about 200 aircraft and says they’ll operate approximately 30 by Sunday evening.

The airline’s CEO, Alexis von Hoensbroech, put the blame for the situation squarely on what he said was a “rogue union from the U.S.” that was trying to make inroads in Canada.

Von Hoensbroech said that, as far as the airline was concerned, bargaining with the union had come to an end once the government directed the dispute to binding arbitration.

“This makes a strike totally absurd because the reason you actually do a strike is because you need to exercise pressure on the bargaining table,” he said. “If there is no bargaining table it makes no sense, there shouldn’t be a strike.”

He added the union had rejected a contract offer that would have made the airline’s mechanics the “best-paid in the country."

In an update to its membership, the union negotiating committee referenced an order by the Canada Industrial Relations Board that does not explicitly bar any strikes or lockouts as the tribunal undertakes arbitration.

Sean McVeigh, a WestJet aircraft maintenance engineer picketing Saturday at Toronto Pearson International Airport Terminal 3, said the strike is an attempt to force the airline to return to a “respectful negotiation.”

McVeigh said the union regrets any inconvenience caused to passengers.

“However, the reason they (passengers) have possibly missed a flight or had to cancel is due to the reason that WestJet is not respectfully sitting down at the table and negotiating,” he said alongside roughly 20 others on the picket line.

“We take on a lot of responsibility and we would just like to be appreciated financially,” he said.

At Pearson, WestJet passengers Samin Sahan and Samee Jan said they had been planning to leave Saturday with extended family members on a trip to Calgary that had been planned for six to eight months.

Sahan said they had received emails earlier in the day telling them their flight had been rescheduled for Monday, but they went to the terminal anyway. He said their efforts to seek clarification combined with the strike had left their travel plans up in the air.

“This inaction is hurting a lot of people, their own company as well as their customers who will likely no longer be their customers ever again,” Sahan said.

Jan called the situation “sad.”

FILE - A westJet airplane takes off in Calgary, Alta., Jan. 21, 202. Mechanics at the Canadian airline WestJet say they are dropping plans to begin a strike now that the airline has agreed to resume negotiations on a new collective-bargaining agreement. Members of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association had been preparing to walk off the job on Thursday night. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press via AP, File)