Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said today that students and citizens participating in the blockades will "continue with violence" and that the state will "choose the moment when the violence will end."
Vučić told Pink television that state authorities in Serbia behaved towards participants in the blockades "more democratically than 95 percent or almost all EU countries and Europe as a whole."
"None of us are happy and sadistic enough to want to show someone who is stronger by beating them. We know who is the strongest in the state. The state, by definition, has a monopoly on physical coercion, but it must be democratic. The state must choose the moment and that moment must be the last, in the use of force. We will wait for the last moment and hope that we will never have to use that force," said the President of Serbia.
He said that he could "certainly" say that the "color revolution in Serbia is over."
"They had a chance to liquidate me on March 15th. That afternoon, I discovered the plans of some criminal groups, I'm not talking about students, who were working together with some state structures. Now I can say with certainty that the color revolution is over and it's ours to get back on the path of economic progress as soon as possible," Vučić said.
He assessed that the multi-day student blockade of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) building in Belgrade was an "unprecedented crime".
"Everything they are doing against RTS is an unprecedented crime and I am not saying this because I love and respect the work of RTS, on the contrary. Blocking access to the building for 10 days, blocking the exit, preventing people from getting food, and all of this being supported by some non-governmental organizations and silenced by many outsiders... You can see from that whose support they have, because when Aleksandar Vulin and his friends held a demonstration in front of TV N1 for an hour or two, the EU, OSCE and every political party immediately spoke out, claiming that this was unprecedented pressure," Vučić said. ;
He also said that the competent state authorities have "audio and video recordings" of individual professors giving exams to foreign students in Serbia, from whom, according to him, they take money while refusing to even give online classes to domestic students.
"It's for prison and it will be for prison. You'll see soon what it looks like," Vučić said.
He assessed that "a rebellion of the rich, the privileged" is taking place in Serbia and that "there are no poor people" at the protests and blockades.
Vučić also said that "some have used the premises of universities and faculties across Serbia to have free local, municipal, and city boards in the rectors' offices."
"They used state property to build party infrastructures. You can commit as many criminal acts as you want, but in the end you will have to answer because someone has destroyed what we have been building for almost a decade. We must never forget the issue of responsibility, no one will be able to take that off the table," said the Serbian President.
He dismissed as "another nonsense in a series" the criminal complaint filed by the Democratic Party (DS) against unidentified individuals for the alleged use of a sound cannon at a student protest on March 15 in Belgrade. ;
"Everyone in Serbia knows that there was no sonic cannon. This was confirmed by the report of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), they even dealt with what happened and not just what didn't happen. This is simply another in a series of lies. If I weren't the president, I would say that every fool has the right to file a report," Vučić said.
Speaking about the economy, Vučić announced that the Preljina-Požega highway section could be opened on Vidovdan and the Belgrade-Subotica railway by July 7.
"On Monday, I will tour the Morava Corridor, then the Danube Highway, and for Vidovdan we plan to open the Preljina-Požega section. By the end of the year, I expect to open the Preljina-Adrani section, and at the latest at the beginning of next year, the Kuzmin-Sremska Rača section," said Vučić.
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