Hundreds of thousands marched in Belgrade on March 15th demanding the immediate resignation of Serbian President Aleksandr Vučić.
The movement was initiated by the Serbian youth following the crash of the just-renovated train station in Novi Sad, the country’s second-biggest city, located in the North of Serbia. Although PM Vučević resigned two months ago, this hasn’t stopped protestors from demanding the resignation of President Vučić, who has been ruling the country first as a PM and then President since 2012.
While Serbia has been protesting in the streets since November, the march on March 15th became historic as it reached record numbers of participants. It is uncertain how many exactly joined, with figures ranging from 100,000 up to one million. What is however unquestionable is that Serbia had never seen protests of this scale – even under war criminal Slobodan Milošević in the late 1990s.
Dragana, a 21-year-old Beograd student, insisted that “there were easily over 500,000 protestors, despite what the government says”. She recalls that “wide, four-lane streets with big sidewalks were completely unwalkable”. Most of the protesters were peaceful, with the peak of unrest scaling up to whistles and plastic trumpets. She also says that she had never seen protests on this scale, reminding that it was not only Belgrade: “Niš, Novi Sad and Kragujevac had also major protests, this was probably the biggest in Serbian history”. In fact, protests outside of Serbia and Europe’s most important cities were also organized, in order to express support: Berlin, Madrid and Paris to cite a few metropoles.
If the protests started out demanding local resignation in Novi Sad, it quickly expanded to an anti-corruption movement demanding urgent change. As the government was reluctant to give in the demands, frustration grew in the population, prompting non-students to join the protest. The repeated police violence in the first months did not scare the population as intended by the forces: instead, it incited more to join.
The demands of the students are as follows:
“1. The publication of the entire documentation related to the reconstruction of the Railway Station in Novi Sad, which is currently unavailable to the public
2. The confirmation from the competent authorities regarding the identity of all individuals reasonably suspected of physically assaulting students and professors, as well as the initiation of criminal proceedings against them. We also demand the dismissal of these individuals if it is proven that they are public officials
3. The dismissal of criminal charges against the arrested and detained students at the protests, as well as the suspension of any ongoing criminal proceedings
4. An increase in the higher education budget by 20%”
Out of all these demands, the only demand the ruling party has accepted to give in has been the last one.
The protest in Belgrade on Saturday started out peacefully. Dunja*, a 20-year-old Serbian student, was thankful for the community: “The atmosphere was wonderful, many people were crying out of joy when we noticed how united we were as a people, and how we were helping each other.” One of the reasons why the protests have been so successful despite the limited international coverage has been that the movement remains apartisan: no specific party has been mentioned leading the protests since the beginning. According to Dunja, the goal was clear: “We were all there [in the protests] with the same goal: to receive the justice Serbia deserves.”
Dragana joined Dunja when it comes to atmosphere: “The protest only started at 4PM, but people started gathering before. I think the best part was to see the creativity of the people with the banners.”
Although protests in the afternoon started peacefully, they did not end as the night progressed: “Precisely when we had a 15-minute silence [for the 15 victims], is when we heard the ‘sound weapon’ sound. People started running in every direction. Everyone was scared”. Earlier today [March 17th], Serbia’s Ministry of Defense refuted the allegation, while President Vučić said yesterday in an televised address to the nation that this was “a vile lie”. While he condemned and promised to open an investigation, he warned that “they should also prosecute those who went public with such a notorious lie”. According to Eastern European media Nexta, the police deployed a LRAD cannon. This weapon can mount up to 160dB, which is louder than the music played in local clubs. Some victims claimed that they experienced sharp pain, while an unnamed reddit user said he needed to be hospitalized following the assault. On the other hand, the Intelligence Ministry has not reacted to the allegations till date.
A few weeks ago, Serbian students started camping in Belgrade’s most important streets, in order to form a permanent blockade. This is nothing new in protests – it was done at Euromaidan in Kyiv (2014), and has been used by environmental activists in the last decade as well. This forces the government to react. According to another protest participant, the government is paying agents to do the same, in the hope of provoking the protestors: “They get money to sit and sleep, they work in shifts and start provoking protestors at the start of the night”. Although not from Belgrade, *Andrej came from South Serbia to express his anger: “We were the right kind of people – over 1 million – and we had not done anything wrong. Nothing happened until paid groups by the government started attacking us”. Andrej also recalls the police violence: “Besides the LRAD cannon, they threw stones, used tear gas”. He adds that the police attacked a boy, and it is believed he has passed away. Andrej insists that “the government has not announced it, and they will probably try to cover it up. But they will not succeed”.
Dragana recalls how she felt after the LRAD cannon blow: “I felt saddened by how the protest ended.” She recalls the exact moment: “The 15-minutes silence was cut short in the 11th minute, with two major incidents causing it: In front of the National Assembly building, chunks of stones and glass bottles were thrown in from the park, which is where pro-government individuals were camping. In the other. we heard a strong sound in Kralja Milana street, it was pretty strong. The fact that the latter was done in the 15-minutes silence, which honoured the victims of the Novi Sad was disgusting.” Dragana was outraged at the government’s reaction: “They say it is not theirs – but then whose was it?”.
