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Tolerance Posters Vandalism in Belgrade

On September 18, 2025, we held the opening of a beautifully displayed Tolerance Poster Show at Belgrade Fortress (Kalemegdan) in Belgrade, Serbia.
The show was a part of the broader Tolerance Campaign — a joint initiative of the United Nations and the Council of Europe launched earlier this year to promote inclusion and counter hate speech. The exhibition underscores efforts to use art, education, and public engagement to challenge prejudice and strengthen solidarity.
But that didn’t last long. After being hung, the posters of Andrzej Pagowski of Poland, Blazo Kovacevic of Montenegro, and Levente Bendek of Romania were soon vandalized. The poster of Levente Bendek was vandalized repeatedly. First, somebody drew a skinhead symbol and scratched homophobic slurs. Then, someone ripped the rainbow flag depicted in the poster. After that, even more hateful messages and symbols were drawn over a rainbow flag that continues to be torn.
So much for tolerance.
Unfortunately, this happens very often, but exclusively in Eastern European countries. Posters are vandalized, ripped, covered with hate speech and symbols, and even stolen. In the case of the show at Timisoara, Romania, posters were taken from the show and burned on YouTube after a local right-wing politician gave a speech railing against the same posters earlier that day. Similar events took place in Bosnia, Croatia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and now in Serbia too.
 





 
 


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