'Like a sound from hell': Was an illegal sonic weapon used against peaceful protesters in Serbia?
'Like a sound from hell': Was an illegal sonic weapon used against peaceful protesters in Serbia?
Serbia's populist government is facing increased public scrutiny over reports that it used a sonic weapon against a peaceful crowd during a massive anti-corruption rally in the capital, Belgrade, on March 15.
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Why the inquisitive tone? I understand that the AP is aiming to be non-partisan, but FFS it was clearly an LRAD. Video and victim accounts line up with previous available material about the weapons. Add to that the photographs of LRADs deployed to the area at the time of the incident - this isn't some Sherlock Holmes mystery, if there's another entirely different weapon which can spur widespread, instant crowd panic without making a sound then I'm all ears, because I've never heard of it. Re-linking footage of the attack from URL used in other comment. Watch the crowd of hundreds reacting to nothing observable at the 0:07 mark
"When presented with photos of the device mounted on an off-road vehicle and deployed at the rally of hundreds of thousands of protesters, officials admitted possessing a sonic weapon, but insisted it was not used against the protesters."
Liars.
What confuses me tho is the fact that government itself welcomed external investigators to prove no such device was used. If you were at fault, you don't normally welcome investigators to look into you, but might just be mind games
That is a bit of an odd sticking point, honestly it makes me wonder if they thought it would be possible to obfuscate investigations and conceal the identities of Police involved.
It's relatively new, in terms of weapons. They've apparently been adopted on some domestic U.S. military bases as a means to repel attacks, but I haven't seen any news reports of people rushing the gates. It's extremely effective for "area denial", and its potential use against demonstrators (peaceful, not rioting) will inevitably cause fatalities - I guarantee that it won't be long before it's used in a situation that doesn't merit the use of force. Someone will die, hearings will be held, nothing will happen, and it will continue to be used to abuse and assault participants of marches, sit-ins, etc. during scenarios where there was no hazard to Police.
see: truncheons, fire hoses, tear gas, rubber bullets...
Fuck that. You just know that as soon as they were issued the weapon, the entire department drew lots to see who got to use the shiny toy on protesters first.