Symbolically on St. Vidovdan Day, a large student protest will be held in Belgrade from 5 to 9 p.m. that could mark a turning point in the political situation in Serbia.
The rally is organized by students gathered around the “Students in Blockade” movement, who have set a clear ultimatum to Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić – to call early parliamentary elections by 9 p.m. tonight! The students say they are not calling for violence, but they warn that responsibility for everything that happens after the ultimatum expires will pass to the institutions.
Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic stated on Thursday, ahead of the anti-government protest in Belgrade called by the student movement for June 28th, that the “state will intervene only if forced,” and that “it will do everything to ensure that no one gets injured.”
Mass protests in Serbia began after 16 people were killed on November 1st last year in the collapse of a canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad, and students blocked more than 60 faculties at all four state universities when, on November 22nd, supporters of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party attacked them while they were paying tribute to the victims of the Novi Sad tragedy with 16 minutes of silence.
The government, which the protesters see as responsible for corrupt dealings and poor construction works that resulted in the deadly canopy collapse, calls the protests a “color revolution.” The protesters, initially called “blockaders,” have in recent weeks been labeled by Vucic-aligned, regime-controlled media as “terrorists,” “fascists,” “Nazis”…
In three separate actions by the police, the Security-Information Agency (BIA), and the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office this week in Serbia, five people were arrested on suspicion of “planning a violent change of government in Serbia” and “overthrowing the constitutional order,” which is interpreted as a continuation of repressive government measures ahead of the protests in Belgrade.
According to a statement from the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade, they are criminally charged with “preparing acts against the constitutional order and the security of Serbia.”
Lawyer Ivan Ninic, legal representative of one of the arrested, assumes that pre-trial detention will be proposed for the arrested.
“The kind of ‘terrorists’ they have been turned into by the regime-controlled media, I think such a campaign has not been recorded so far,” said Ninic.
Ninic says that what was shown previously in regime media is supposedly intended to show that the wiretapping was not done by BIA or institutions, but by someone else to portray the student movement as weak.
“The entire propaganda machinery is sending a message to the public that information of such nature is not leaking from BIA, but is the result of either investigative journalism or insiders within the so-called blockaders,” explains Ninic.
Vucic, on the occasion of the protest, said two days ago that “June 28th will pass” and that “the state will win.”
“If we have to, of course, we will intervene, but I hope they won’t force us to,” Vucic told a local television station in Nis.
