What's happening at the protests in Serbia: Thousands in the streets, attacks on students, the noise of whistles, vuvuzelas...

Multiple individual attacks on protesters and growing street revolt marked a turbulent Sunday in Serbia.

Here's what a Deutsche Welle (DW) reporter recorded:

29524 views 23 reactions 22 comment(s)
From the protest in Belgrade on January 17th, Photo: Reuters
From the protest in Belgrade on January 17th, Photo: Reuters
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

Despite the sub-zero temperatures, more than fifty thousand students and citizens (according to the Archive of Public Assemblies) protested in front of the RTS building in Belgrade. Under the slogan "Our right to know everything," the crowd expressed dissatisfaction with the public media service's reporting on the situation in the country.

The protest began with a fifteen-minute silence for the 15 people killed in the collapse of a canopy in Novi Sad, during which the gathered complemented the effect of silence with light effects from phone flashes.

"Let us go live," the crowd chanted as the national news broadcast began.

Serbian tricolors fluttered among numerous banners, the noise of whistles, vuvuzelas and banging on dishes could be heard within a radius of several kilometers, and the protest was also marked by a large model of a sandwich with the image of a two hundred euro bill, intended for the general director of RTS, Dragan Bujošević.

Belgrade protest
photo: Reuters

After the protest ended, students returned to their faculties, which have been under complete blockade since the beginning of December.

More isolated attacks on students

This was just one in a series of rallies across Serbia this week, held as a form of expression of dissatisfaction over the attacks on students in the blockade.

On Friday, during a protest in Novi Sad, an elderly man attacked the crowd with a knife, while the day before, a first-year law student was hit by a police car during a fifteen-minute blockade, causing multiple injuries.

On the night between January 13th and 14th, a group of young people attacked students at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade, where, in addition to harsh words, glass bottles were thrown at them.

Student Marko came to protest against corruption.

Marko, a student at the University of Belgrade, told Deutsche Welle (DW) that the attacks on future lawyers, whose faculty "has relevance in the entire process and is responsible for reviewing the documentation related to the canopy collapse," are also a symbolic indication that they are doing "a good thing, since they are trying to scare us in such an unfair and violent way."

For him, the main reason he decided to join the blockade a month ago is corruption.

"Although the canopy is a drop in the bucket, it shows all the corruption of this system. The institutions' inaction further 'fires up' the students, which awakens resentment in us and gives us the motivation to continue," says this Belgrade resident.

Student Jovana: "I don't feel safe anywhere"

The attacks on students in recent days have created an atmosphere of fear among Serbian citizens, and as Jovana Ilić from Paraćin, a student at the Faculty of Agriculture in Belgrade, explains, insecurity is one of the reasons why she does not give up on the blockades.

"I don't feel safe anywhere. That's why our faculty's motto is 'Rotten to the Core', because the system we live in needs to change. I want to stay in Serbia, to have a family here, and for the same reasons all my colleagues want better living conditions," she tells DW.

Solidarity, togetherness, and empathy, she explains, are what restores her hope that their struggle is not in vain, and she defines all the pressure coming from those who are against the protests as a consequence of the media darkness.

Marko agrees with this, noting that people who do not have students or young people in their families to inform them, "are not sufficiently aware of what our basic goals are, let alone why this type of struggle is taking place. I think they are just not awake enough."

Disappointment with the changes that took place in the 90s, he says, led them to doubt everything, "because whoever got burned by hot milk will also blow on cold yogurt."

Mirko (father of a student): "Things should be called by their right names"

Students who do not support the blockades were reluctant to give a statement to DW, but the parent of one student was happy to do so, describing the street blockades as "increasingly politically charged."

"If students are fighting for standards, for a better tomorrow in science, in every sphere of life, I will always support them, but blockades of faculties that spill over into the streets should absolutely be avoided, both for the safety of students and for the safety of all citizens," Mirko T. tells DW.

He points out that "the autonomy of the faculty in the amphitheater does not mean autonomy at Slavija or in front of RTS", and that it is important to "call things by their right names".

"If these protests lead to a change in the state apparatus, an apparatus that I do not support – then that should be said openly, but it should also be said what happens the day after. If they don't know that, let them not do what they are doing," Mirko believes.

Political scientist Stamenković: "The media created an image of students as enemies of the state"

It is precisely the media messages that the government is putting out that have encouraged citizens to take justice into their own hands and "have already created an image among some people of students as enemies of the state," believes Viktor Stamenković, a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade.

He notes that, if, every day, "through tabloids and national television, students are called foreign mercenaries, Ustashas, ​​intelligence agents, their passports are published and people who run them over with cars are justified, the government no longer has to organize attacks - individual citizens dissatisfied with the blockades will do it themselves, because a narrative has been created that it is justified."

Stamenković believes that the increasingly aggressive attacks are not in the government's interest, because "they also arouse positive feelings towards students among those voters who may not have had a defined position on the blockades."

General strike announced for January 24th

Stamenković sees the only way out of the current crisis situation in fulfilling at least some of the students' demands, and this will depend, as he explains, on which social groups will join the students, as a general strike has been announced for January 24th.

"The government, through a series of wrong decisions in managing this situation, has put itself in a very tense position, because, on the one hand, it will sooner or later have to give in to the demands of students and citizens, but it must find a way to do so in a way that meeting those demands does not jeopardize its basic foundations," Stamenković points out to DW.

However, "finding the balance between meeting demands and preserving power seems to be becoming increasingly difficult as time goes on," he concludes.

Jovana: "This is the most important exam right now"

Although they do not believe that the stories about the inability to finish the school year are justified, because they do not come from professors but from government representatives, students say they are ready to make that sacrifice, if that is the price they have to pay for a better tomorrow.

"We all want to take exams and graduate from college, but this is the most important exam right now," says Jovana.

And Marko says that "the change has already begun and the more people willingly and wholeheartedly join this, the easier it will be for us to make a better change."

The students are continuing the blockades, as they say, until the four demands are met - the publication of complete documentation on the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station, the dismissal of charges against students and young people arrested and detained during protests, the filing of criminal charges against attackers of students and professors and their prosecution, as well as a 20 percent increase in the budget for higher education.

Bonus video: