Belgrade authorities have used sound weapons on the crowd of protesters. The video description has some educational links.
There are lots of videos around.
Honestly, we avoided a massive tragedy at that moment. People described that it sounded like a car or airplane was coming at them at full speed, so they instinctively ran away from the roads. People further away didn’t see or hear anything, they just saw a crowd running in panic and so they ran as well. I was maybe 50-100m away from where it happened, and all we heard was noise, yells, and then people running, so the people around me also started running, but we all stopped after maybe 5s.
A lot of people think that our overlord wanted to cause a stampede which would lead to thousands of injuries and just chaos in order to discredit the protests. Or maybe they wanted to launch the cannon after the 15 mins of silence were over, which would cause mass confusion since nobody would have any idea what was going on, but triggered it early. In any case, the psychopath used an illegal weapon to attack people literally standing still and being quiet.
Pne of the most sliky, pathetic strategies.
- use the sound cannon
- stampede
- many people injured
- protest are now illegal bc safety
Hoch die internationale Solidarität from Germany! (Raise high international solidarity/Cheers to international solidarity.)
How would you fight that tech?
If by “fight” you mean “defend” … You can build a shield to reflect it: https://www.vice.com/en/article/audio-engineers-built-a-shield-to-deflect-police-sound-cannons/ Details here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rnaSvs_WMYmlymEBa2R8fFxBu4apEjH4uX9lRcib1ZM
Btw, this is about microwave weapons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg_aUOSLuRo
I bet guns would work
“Let every dirty, lousy tramp arm himself with a revolver or a knife, and lay in wait on the steps of the palaces of the rich and stab or shoot the owners as they come out. Let us kill them without mercy, and let it be a war of extermination.”
- Lucy Parsons
Surely it’s not as simple as ear plugs.
It’s why I’m asking. People should know how to combat this.
My understanding of this is that it is caused partly by bone conduction. It might be possible that closing your ears by pressing frimly on your “tragus” or on the “mastoid process” could reduce the associated effects. The mastoid process is where the jaw meets the ear.
Fortunately once people are aware of such tricks, they won’t be effective anymore
Sound is moving air and carries energy. With the right frequency and intensity it could definitely physically fuck you up even if your ears are covered.
Wikipedia:
Studies have found that exposure to high intensity ultrasound at frequencies from 700 kHz to 3.6 MHz can cause lung and intestinal damage in mice
Here’s an educational video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXKTBQBugIA
Nope. It’s a sonic weapon, not loud speaker.
LRADs are loudspeakers. Loudspeakers which can output in the order of 160db at 1m. Anything can be a weapon when you make it powerful enough.
Technically, yes. A bullet is just a fast moving object.
I was refering to sheer power of the thing. Guy asked if earplugs would help. LARD gets a tree swinging. It’s not “just a speaker” at that point.
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Seems like peaceful protest is no longer an option. They just forced people to go for the second option.
Americans, take notes. The US government will use these tactics to disrupt protest, no doubt about it.
Some police forces have used sound cannons against protesters, for example during the 2009 G20 Pittsburgh summit,[7] the 2014 Ferguson unrest,[8] and the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protest in North Dakota,[9] among others.
No, they’ll just shoot us or take us to a black site. They’re not that clever.
These systems are developed in the US too. Look up LRAD
No one is arguing they’re not. Go be a contrarian somewhere else.
Agents provocateur are much easier and less obvious. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
There’s also this alternate view from the top:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GotCNOgMN80
And let’s be honest: Whoever uses a weapon like that in a crowd like that is playing with lifes. That can led to a crowd panic, which will kill people.
That may have been the point: cause stampede, people die, ban protests, “LRAD? What’s that?”
Comment and upvote boys, not reddit, no meta, not shitter, not legacy media will report on this. This is why we exist
A thread about this is literally pinned on r/europe.
Edit: Also on front page of r/popular with >66k upvotes.
I got links to videos on Twitter (although I didn’t use that shit so maybe they are deleted by now), saw multiple post on Reddit and the video here is hosted on f***ing Youtube.
Yes, a lot of those are shit in general and should be avoided. But somehow it seems they are still not shitty enough if you have to invent bullshit about how they all refuse to report on this.
Yes brave oppositional soul. But when it starts being taken down on the others we will stand tall.
Crazy shit. Expect this nonsense to hit US rallies as well.
So what did the government do, planes/jets? Says sound cannon, what is that? And furthermore, WTF! A peacefull protest, what were they trying to achieve? How sad do you have to be to order this action, let alone to actually do this as an employee??
LRAD. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were field testing the gear for the yanks or whoever. Would also explain why they did it in the middle of a “moment of silence”.
The government hates that silence because it reminds them they killed 15 people on the train station in Novi Sad.
Protests started when they attacked students giving the respects to victims.
LRAD isn’t some super fancy tech. Don’t let them use this to spread anti-western bullshit and divide the movement. This is what Putin and his cronies want.
How LRAD works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7UZHEHhdek
And how to counter it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXKTBQBugIA
I know what it is, and they got it from the US, not from Russia. Not every asshole in the world is Putin’s subordinate.
I’m not saying they got it from Russia either, I’m saying that the Serbian govt. can make LRADs themselves. And they (Russia and their supporters) will try to use incidents like this as propaganda to divide the people by spreading an anti-western sentiment (eg. “testing gear for the yanks or whoever”). It’s standard procedure for the Russians and their allies. Disinformation is their biggest stick right now.
Also, I’m not finding anything about Serbia acquiring LRAD systems from Europe, the US or Russia. Just conjecture from a handful of smaller websites. Because again, Serbia can just make their own. They’re not complicated or expensive to make.
You severely, and I mean severely overestimate the ingenuity of the current state security’s apparatus. And the word on the street was it’s Genasys gear, ordered after the 2020 protests. The press caught wind of it in 2022 when they tried to change the law to allow it’s use. Ironically, at the time of purchase, the head cop was Vulin, who personally is a huge russophile, but hey, busyness is busyness, I guess.
word on the street was it’s Genasys gear
Exactly. I’m not a huge fan of rumors and this is the only thing I can find directly linking Genasys and Serbia - at all. Which references Direktno.rs as their source, but I can’t that info anywhere on their site. The article you linked doesn’t even mention them directly.
Just a protip: If someone is finger pointing (at Genasys or anyone) without actual proof (documentation, pictures, etc.) just ignore it, it’s probably bullshit. Stay focused on the on the prize and taking down YOUR corrupt officials, don’t let anyone divide the group.
Edit: Yup, this rumor was started by Russian disinformation bots here and here. With their “source” being a screenshot from another, unverifiable social media post.
The direktno.rs info would probably be this article. And, sadly, considering the current protest is, initially, precisely over the refusal to release what should be publicly available documents, word on the street is about as good as we’re gonna get.
And, as a sidenote, don’t assume what you imagine “the group” to be is what “the group” actually is. There is a reason why, for the first time in over a decade, Serbian protesters don’t wave EU flags anymore.
Well it’s good to see that Serbia hasn’t changed much since Arkan left.
Edit: /s
What the actual fuck.
What kind of bastards! They were protesting with silence!
It’s still not entirely clear to me: did the government really use these weapons? I don’t recognize enough from the photos. :( And don’t understand myself in such weapons either. What I would like to add to the conversation, however, is that Novak Djokovic and several other prominent athletes FINALLY support the protests.
It’s not really the type of weapon that you can just buy off the shelf (for such a scale).
Wild.
