Kovačica, Grdelica, Kačarevo, Starčevo, Obrovac, Mramorak, Veternik, Šid, Kać, Trgovište, Svrljig, Babušnica, Bogatić, Tutin, Nova Varoš, Vladičin Han, Ruski Krstur, Bačko Dobro Polje, Ravno Selo, Žitorađa, Vučje, Ražanj – these are just some of the smaller towns in Serbia where citizens organised 15-minute-long silent vigils, to honour the victims of the concrete canopy collapse that happened on Nov 1st 2024 in Novi Sad, and to show their support for students and their demands. In some of these towns, this was going to be the first ever civil protest.
The map of municipalities where demonstrations against corruption, lawlessness and violence have been recorded over the last three months, drawn up only a few days ago was probably completely monochrome on Saturday 1 February.
Protests are everywhere. Out of the 174 units of local self-government in Serbia, 151 were noted on the map at the beginning of the week and it could easily be the case that the list is completely filled by now.
As the civil insurgency expands territorially, it appears to be strengthening as well. In larger cities, gatherings bigger than those on the 5th of October 2000 (the fall of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime) were recorded two weekends in a row.
Lest we forget that on January 24, the day when the general strike attempt was held, 55.000 people took to the streets in Belgrade and 22.000 in Novi Sad. In Niš, 10.5000 citizens gathered in Sinđelić Square on the same day, and then on January 26, as many as 15.000 – the equivalent of 114.000 in Belgrade. 5.500-6.000 people participated in the protest march in Kragujevac on the day of the call for a general strike. As many as 6.300 people gathered on Sunday, January 26, in Čačak (the equivalent of 125.000 in Belgrade), over 5.500 in Pančevo on the 25 and 4.000 in Užice on the 24. The streets of Leskovac, Subotica, and Zrenjanin were also full.
And the weekend before that, 17-19 January, as the Archive of Public Meetings (AJS) wrote, was marked by protests throughout Serbia, culminating in the simultaneous action Last minute class , held on Sunday in several cities with the aim of supporting student demands, but also encouraging educators to stay on strike. More than 20.000 citizens took to the streets in Belgrade, 6.500-7.000 in Niš, 5.000-5.200 in Kragujevac, around 4.000 in Novi Sad, and gatherings were held in fifteen other cities and municipalities. These demonstrations, which already overshadowed the gatherings of the following weekend, were assessed by the AJS as the largest protest gatherings since the year 2000.
How did it all start?
On November 1, 2024, the public was shocked by the news that tons of concrete overhangs of the twice-opened Railway Station in Novi Sad collapsed, killing (initially) 14 (as of November 18, fifteen) and maiming at least three more people. After the death of innocents in the helicopter crash, the Krušik factory, the mine in Resavica, at the toll booth in Doljevac, in the mass murders in Dubona, Mali Orašje and Belgrade, and just one month after an armoured vehicle of the Republic of Serbia army crushed an entire family with three children – the blood of the victims in Novi Sad has spilled over.
The following day, members of the Green-Left Front marked the building of the Government of the Republic of Serbia with handprints reading “your hands are bloody”. Blood-red fists will soon become a symbol of protest. On the same day, Nikola Ristić an activist from the group SviĆe, asked the public, on Instagram, whether it is necessary to react to the events in Novi Sad with a protest, to which a large number of citizens answered yes. Ristić called for a gathering on November 3 in front of the old railway station in Belgrade. Like the Green-Left Front, ZLF, MPs, he was detained by members of the BIA (the Serbian Security Intelligence Agency), but the protest went ahead.
Based on photos, experts had initially estimated that the canopy was overloaded and that its structural assembly had been destroyed, while authority representatives openly mislead the public with statements about the canopy not having being reconstructed; the previous Minister of Construction, Vesić, tendered his resignation on November 4 with a statement distancing himself from all and any responsibility, adding “insult to injury”. No one was arrested.
People’s anger escalates into a rally in Novi Sad on November 5. About 20,000 people took part in the largest demonstration recorded in the city. During the protest, there were incidents and about fifteen activists, representatives of the opposition and citizens were arrested. Some spent the following days, and others even months, in prison with serious charges. Instead of intimidating – the arrests add fuel to the fire.
Targeted by the authorities as anti-state elements, in the eyes of the demonstrators, those arrested become heroes and martyrs. Just like with Ristić, or those who were arrested, including Bjelić and Ješić, the label of protest instigator simply won’t stick.
Blockades of bridges, prosecutor’s office, Rectorate
Over the following weeks, protests and blockades were organised (of lower intensity, compared to the current ones), and institutions such as the University of Philosophy in Belgrade called for the release of the arrested. As professors from University of Philosophy pointed out, “The possibility that the government is probably seeking someone or some to take the blame, for an adequate compensation, in order to protect those most responsible for this crime sounds terrifying.” Provincial deputies and city councillors from Novi Sad blocked the entrance to the Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad on between November 19-21, demanding the release of political activists after the protest over the collapse of the canopy in Novi Sad.
On November 19, the premises of the Republic’s Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments in Belgrade were raided by none other than the BIA, due to the institution’s refusal to remove protection from the Generalštab Modernist Complex. On November 20, the initiative Most continues its blockade of Branko’s bridge in Belgrade. This fuels tensions further, as the demolition of the Generalštab, Hotel Jugoslavija, the Fair Complex in Belgrade and the Sava Bridge, along with the construction of the EXPO pavilion, are perceived as part of a continuum of harmful and dangerous policies. Students participate in the blockade of the bridge, and then block the Rectorate of the University of Belgrade, where Vučić’s address had been announced.
Citizens are detained. Vesić and ten other people are taken into custody – but his arrest does not seem serious. It is more of a theatrical performance.
Serbia, stop! Since November 22.
On Friday, November 22, ProGlas and opposition parties are calling for a coordinated action “Serbia, stop!”, with the idea of holding 15 minutes of silence for the 15 victims of the collapsed canopy. According to data from the AJS, at least 50 cities and municipalities held this action on the first Friday which, at the time, represented the largest simultaneous protest action organised across Serbia.
In Belgrade, citizens were attacked in front of the National Radio & Television Headquarters, RTS, and in front of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (University of Arts in Belgrade) there was an incident in which persons, some of whom were later identified as SNS municipal officials, physically attacked peacefully gathered students. Two days later in Novi Sad, the police brutally beat pensioner Ilija Kostić, who was detained during the protest.
Students from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts react to the violence against their colleagues by blocking the faculty from November 25 (until the requirements defined on November 26 were met). The blockade was supported by scientific and artistic associations. Brnabić mentioned the advisory referendum for the first time.
The Initiative Most continued organising the blockade of Belgrade Waterfront on November 27, with the message that all current struggles should be consolidated in solidarity. Green-Left Front deputy sprinkled red paint on the table of the chairpersons of the Belgrade City Assembly. On the same day, Vesić’s detention was terminated by a decision that jurisprudence experts called illegal as the phrasing was such that indictment as well as detention were terminated.
Blockade of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts from November 26; other faculties from November 29
Students of the University of Belgrade organised a twelve-hour blockade of the Rectorate building on November 29 from 11:52 to 23:52, when they also held a plenum. Their demands were:
1) publication of the complete documentation of the reconstruction of the railway station in Novi Sad and an investigation into those responsible for the collapse of the canopy;
2) the arrest and prosecution of all suspects for the physical attack on students and professors on November 22 in front of their faculty building;
3) dismissal of all charges against those arrested at previous protests;
4) increasing the allocation from government budget into state higher education institutions by 20 percent.
“We will not let them beat us in the street, we will not let buildings fall on our heads because of their corruption, we will not let them destroy our education”, said the students after several cases of arrests and violence over the following weeks.
Students drew attention to the fact that cutting of university funding from the state budget and the proposal to amend the Law on Higher Education represented a direct attack on equal educational opportunities as well social mobility for young people.
“If not now – when? By taking to the streets and providing support, together we can show that solidarity and struggle have the power to change the system. This is not just a student struggle, but one for all who want to stay and make Serbia better. Let’s show that we are here! Join us, because silence is not an option,” read the closing of their statement which Mašina was first to report, and that would change the course of history in the coming months.
Within a few weeks, the whole University of Belgrade, the University of Arts in Belgrade, the University of Niš and most of the University of Novi Sad, i.e., over 60 faculties, would join the blockades, which have been multiplying since December 2.
At the beginning of December 2024, the opposition in Novi Sad called for mayor’s removal, while a tribute to the victims and a rally took place in front of the City Assembly. Two days later, MP Radivoje Jovović was arrested for an alleged attack on an official during the same rally.
Young people have been leading the game since December 6
Starting on November 29, students organised plenums where further steps are democratically decided. They took the lead in the “Serbia, stop!” actions, which were becoming hard to follow due to their large numbers. As the AJS wrote “After December 6, blockades became daily and it was very difficult to follow all the checkpoints where they were organised, and they were joined by numerous secondary and even elementary schools, where students organised school blockades and teachers suspended classes.”
The AJS added that after December 6, young people – university students and high school students – were taking on an increasingly important role, while another form of action began to emerge, in addition to silent vigils and road blockades, the blockade of secondary education institutions and schools. “In most cities, the action was held only at one location, but in more than one in larger cities, and sometimes at a double-digit number of locations.”
At the beginning of December, supporters of the Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, began attacking demonstrators in Požarevac, Belgrade, Novi Sad and other cities. Serbia’s President encouraged future attackers by saying that a driver who ran over a protester was “simply going his way” and that there was no reason to arrest him.
Consolidating the initiatives
Students’ demands, at the core of which was the demand for impartial and undisturbed work of institutions, the punishment of criminal acts and the safety of individuals in the physical environment, coincide with the demands of many local groups and national platforms that had previously started the fight for a safe and healthy urban and rural environment, adequate electoral conditions and better living and working conditions. This enabled cooperation and support between students and other groups, who strategically put their demands on the back burner, but do not abandon them.
Among such groups are the initiatives against the demolition of Hotel Jugoslavija, which took place in November and December, and as a result of the protests the public has become more attuned to the potential, harmful environmental consequences of both – as well as the Most remains initiative, which just a day before the canopy collapse had held the first set of physical defences of the Old Sava Bridge from demolition, and which has been on the ground guarding the bridge ever since. Other, similar initiatives include farmers’ associations that have been warning about their catastrophic status for years (while some of them are also active in the fight against Rio Tinto).
Just two days before the canopy collapse, the Government abandoned the criminalisation of calls to protest gatherings, which were proposed by amendments to the Criminal Code, as well as the decriminalisation of extorting statements, which would have changed the behaviour of officials of the security services towards detained activists.
The Association Naše Mleko and the Association for the Rescue and Survival of Western Serbia, at a meeting held on December 8, decided to join protest blockades, and they were joined the following day by the Association of Milk Producers of Šumadija and Pomoravlja, as well as Nadibar and the United Farmers’ Association of Serbia. Their demands were specific, but they were accompanied by support for students. This was followed by government’s retaliation, through a smearing campaign and by legally preventing the association’s leaders from working. Instead of intimidating – this only caused new blockades and angered an even greater number of citizens.
Farmers soon began to provide material support to the students in an organised manner, from cooking for them to promising to physically protect them. Agricultural machines reached Novi Sad and Belgrade several times.
Instead of the Cobras, high schools are entering the game
On December 11, while students demonstrated in front of the Presidency, Vučić promised housing loans for young people, but also declared that he “could have let the Cobras (elite special police units) destroy them in 6-7 seconds”.
He announced the publication of documentation, part of which was published on the website of the Government of Serbia. An analysis showed that this documentation is incomplete. The following day, December 12, the plenums deny his claims that the demands have been met and call for a rally in front of the National Radio & Television, RTS, Headquarters in Belgrade because of the inadequate reporting of the protests by the state public service.
In mid-December, it transpired that authorities had been using spyware to eavesdrop on activists. On December 17, businessmen held new road blockades. According to poll shared by Mašina, support for student blockades at this moment is almost absolute and is provided by a large number of independent associations from various spheres.
At the end of December, the government faced the danger of the educators’ strike for better working conditions, which had been going on for four months at that point, merging with the student and civil protests. Trade union representatives had previously announced the radicalization of the protest for November 1, the day of the canopy collapse, and throughout December they received more attention and support from the public. In order to prevent the protests merging, the Ministry of Education hastily shortened the first semester by one week on December 20.
The reaction? Starting from XIV Belgrade Secondary School, graduates of numerous secondary schools throughout Serbia, including those whose principals are members of the Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, refuse to go to school and declare blockades. Unexpectedly, even younger students join university students and give support to their own teachers. Younger students, with their parents’ permission, also join the blockades.
It is increasingly difficult for the authorities to identify “leaders and instigators” to dehumanise and demonise (although they have been doing their best). To every attempt by the president to spin it, the student’s answer is – You are not in charge.
Slavija: 100.000 people
At the end of last year, on December 22, the biggest gathering yet was organised.
Students gathered in Belgrade’s Slavija Square to support farmers and farmers gathered to support students. Students from the Faculty of Organisational Sciences and farmers from the association Nedamo Jadar called for the protest but, much to the authorities’ dismay, there were no individual leaders.
Over 100.000 people flooded Slavija, that is, a fifth more than, according to official estimates, there were in front of the National Assembly Hall on October 5, 2000. Fifteen minutes of silence speak more than a thousand words. It’s getting serious.
“There is No New Year, you still owe us for the Old One”
The authorities responded to the rally in Slavija with a small gathering of SNS supporters at Sava Centre in Belgrade on December 25. The gathering was shown on state television services, RTS, as being several times larger than the hall could actually hold. On the same day, the Most initiative and representatives of opposition parties gathered in front of the Belgrade City Assembly Hall to protest against the adoption of the new city budget, and a protest by Postal workers also took place.
All three protests are overshadowed by a group of students who handed over 1000 letters to public prosecutor Zagorka Dolovac in front of the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office. Dolovac has dropped off the face of the Earth and she hasn’t been seen since the beginning of the latest protests. At the expense of dual citizenship, the authorities targeted individual students as Ustaše (fascist military formation of the Independent State of Croatia during World War II), but were not particularly successful.
On December 27, students protested in front of the Ministry of Education supporting fellow students who are holding blockades at their schools and educators facing enormous pressure. On December 30, an indictment was filed against Vesić and 12 other people, but this failed to reassure the public too.
While popular singer sang on December 31, at the New Year’s Eve celebrations at Republic Square, in Belgrade, tens of thousands of students and citizens, just 300 metres away, held a silent vigil at midnight, raising their phone lights to the sky in memory of the victims. This New Year’s protest, unsuccessfully sabotaged by fireworks in Belgrade Waterfront that eerily echoed in the fog like the cannons of a silent civil war in progress, was called “There is No New Year, you still owe us for the Old One”.
The organisers are the student plenum, supported by the farmers of the Association of Environmental Organisations of Serbia, who, with the help of civic donations, make hot meals for the students standing in the freezing cold. Plenums and blockades stubbornly persisted thanks to the enormous solidarity, support, and help of citizens who provided food, blankets, and hygiene products.
Instead of decreasing, the intensity of protests increased after Christmas
Roads have been blocked every day and protests in smaller cities got bigger since the start of the New Year. The only break was on Orthodox Christmas Day, January 7.
Students were back at it from January 10, and organised a blockade of the Mostar interchange in Belgrade under the slogan “Come to Mostar if you are feeling loopy”.
“The Mostar interchange is at the heart of traffic junctions in our city, so by blocking this focal centre we want to highlight the intricate junction in which the Prosecutor’s Office finds itself, and whose responses to specific demands and laws are either delayed or completely absent. We invite all students, farmers, educators, postmen, lawyers, as well as other workers and citizens to join us in protest,” read their statement at the time.
According to AJS estimates, around 30.000 people participated in the protest in front of the Constitutional Court in Belgrade on January 12. That same weekend, a large number of citizens (proportionately to to the size of the cities) take to the streets in Kragujevac, Trstenik, Sokobanja, Užice, Kraljevo, Kruševac, Novi Sad and Vlasotinac.
As the beginning of the second school semester was growing closer, representatives from educational workers’ unions, starting on January 9, agreed to continue negotiations with the Ministry of Education, thus dashing hopes that the strike would continue in the education sector and spread to other sectors. In the following days, unions whose representativeness had not been checked for years went on to falsely present the results of the survey among their membership to legitimise the end of their protest.
This posed a real threat to the student protest – but on January 16, a young woman was almost killed when a car ran into students at a blockade in Belgrade, and hit her so hard she bounced over the top of the car and then fell onto the ground.
More people took to the streets of several cities across the country within half an hour from the reported attack. On January 17, a large number of citizens gathered for the second time in front of the RTS building in Belgrade, demanding that the state media start properly reporting on and covering the protests.
General strike and blockade of the Autokomanda junction
Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, supporters attacked another student in Belgrade, on January 20, and then made another incredible move on the 21 by drawing the middle finger on overpasses and school playgrounds. This was interpreted as an arrogant, admission of guilt: “Yes, our hands are bloody, but you can’t do anything to us.” The result? More people are mobilised.
Small organisations called for a general strike on January 24, and students invited unions from the Energy Sector to the strike too. While unions as a whole have not proven to be overly functional in this context, many individuals independently entered into suspensions. The Bar Association declared itself on strike – it was therefore unlawfully thwarted – and so it proclaimed itself on strike again. Several universities stood behind students’ demands, therefore making them their own.
Simultaneous gatherings were held across Serbia on January 24. Instead of stopping, drivers-supporters of SNS continued to attack and ran over those gathering on the streets. One young woman, a student from the Faculty of Agriculture, was nearly killed in Novi Beograd. The result? At the following protest held by students of the same faculty, tractors to protect the students arrived from South Banat. The tractors reached Belgrade as early as January 27, when the blockade of the Autokomanda junction was organised.
The blockade was a phenomenal success. Vučić, who threatened to “unleash” state security, aka: The Cobras, claiming he and his government had “good intentions”, instructed the police to provide “security” at the protest. De-escalation unravelled into brutal violence – almost deadly in Novi Sad again – and on that same night, another young woman and student received such a brutal beating that, in the words of the doctors who treated her in the aftermath, “the injuries she sustained are of such seriousness she will most likely suffer life-long disability as a result”. The Prime Minister, Vučević, who was also the previous mayor of Novi Sad, and the current mayor of Novi Sad, Đurić, submitted their resignations.
The government published another spoonful of the documentation about the railway reconstruction. Experts stated it didn’t make a difference; the Faculty of Civil Engineering had previously identified all that was missing. Vučić went on to sign pardons for all those arrested and detained. However, both students and formerly arrested citizens said – that’s not enough. The government then proceeded to announce that it would halve tuition fees. But students keep asking: Where are those responsible and when they are going to jail?
Three months since the fall
One of the largest civil protests in the history of Serbia was organized in Novi Sad on the first of February, three months after the fall of the canopy, under the slogan “Say enough – blockade of three bridges”.
Students from the University of Novi Sad called for a protest, joined by students from Belgrade universities and citizens. Two groups cycled from Belgrade in the previous days. Several hundred students chose to walk the eighty kilometers between Belgrade and Novi Sad, supported by gatherings and food by thousands of citizens in smaller towns along the way. The blockade of all three Novi Sad bridges lasted for three hours, and the Sloboda bridge was first blocked for 24 hours according to the original plan, and after the agreement at the first student-citizen plenum, for another four hours.
Even after three months on the streets, the students’ demands remain the same.
Translated from Serbian by M.J.
