Famous Serbian drama teacher arrested after rape claim

BELGRADE: Serbian police have arrested a famous drama teacher and director on suspicion of sexually assaulting at least five of his students, the interior minister said Monday.

The allegations have gripped a Balkan state whose entertainment industry has yet to see the ‘Me Too’ reckoning that erupted in Hollywood in 2017 before rippling across the globe.

Police suspect that two of the alleged victims were underage at the time, and called other potential victims to speak out.

Miroslav Aleksic, the 68year-old theatre director and producer, was arrested Sunday following the testimony of a 25-year-old Serbian film actress Milena Radulovic.

She told local daily newspaper Blic that her former teacher raped her multiple times when she was 17 years old.

“We all think it happens elsewhere, in other countries, but this happened to us,” Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin told the private station Pink TV, pledging to “protect the victims and punish those responsible”.

Aleksic ran a prestigious private drama school in Belgrade that has been attended by over 3,000 children, many of whom became famous themselves.

“After a long internal struggle, a few courageous young girls and I decided to speak out against the dark circle of harassment,” Radulovic, who is pursuing her acting career in Russia, wrote on Instagram.

“We will not give up,” she added.

The young actress was hailed in local media for her courage to speak out.

Her testimony quickly sparked a campaign on social media that saw other women share similar stories of trauma with the hashtag #nisisama, which means “you are not alone” in Serbian.

The move also drew comparisons to Marija Lukic, a former small-town secretary who sued her boss for sexual harassment in Serbia’s first high-profile ‘Me Too’ trial in 2018.

Lukic won the trial, with the court convicting former mayor Milutin Jelicic of sexual harassment last year and handing him a three-month prison sentence.—