“I will never go to Serbia again as long as the dictator is in power,” Severina said on Monday.
“I asked the law enforcement authorities why they did not arrest German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently when he came to visit them, since Germany voted in the United Nations for the resolution on Srebrenica,” the singer added, referring to a contested vote on a Srebrenica remembrance day held in May.
According to a Serbian tabloid, the stop was a “regular procedure of the Serbian police for everything that the state authorities consider questionable.” Severina reportedly gained entry following talks with the authorities, but instead chose to return to Croatia.
While President Vučić of Croatia denounced the singer’s detention, calling it “very stupid and unnecessary,” he added that he thinks “the worst of her.” Interior Minister Ivica Dačić noted that the border guards hadn’t denied the singer entry into Serbia, and asked facetiously whether they “should introduce a music police.”
This isn’t the first high-profile individual from the region to face issues at the border. In January Bosnian singer Selma Bajrami was also detained and subsequently banned from entering Serbia after displaying a double-headed eagle during a performance — for Albanians, the bird symbolizes their ethnicity and their flag.
Neither Serbia’s interior ministry nor Croatia’s foreign ministry could be reached for comment.
