A twelve-hour protest by high school students from all over Serbia in Novi Sad ended tonight, eight minutes after midnight, after a sixteen-minute silence was observed to honor the victims of the collapse of the canopy at the Railway Station on November 1st.
The protest was organized by high school students to protest the introduction of online classes.
The protest began yesterday at 11.52:XNUMX, also by paying tribute to the victims of the canopy collapse, gathering high school students from several places and citizens of Novi Sad.
An hour before the end of the protest, they started cleaning the intersection near the Futoška market, which had been blocked the entire time.
Before that, during the evening, in addition to speeches by teachers and students, the high school choir, as well as the bands Iskaz and Ritam nereda, also participated in the blockade.
High school students at the "Online is not the solution" protest said they would not accept the illegal decision on online classes, and adults said it was time for a general strike.
During the protest, students wrote messages on the road with chalk, and among the banners were messages such as "You will be held accountable", "Sorry for the blockade, we had nowhere to run", "Valjevo residents against bad guys", "You wouldn't have turned out to be sheep if you had listened to punk".
The people of Novi Sad brought them food and drinks at stands mostly run by parents from several elementary schools: "Jožef Atila", "Miloš Crnjanski", "Đura Daničić" and others.
A first aid station was also set up.
High school and grammar school students from all over Serbia arrived on Friday evening on foot and by bicycle in Novi Sad, where they were welcomed at the intersection near the Futoška pijaca market.
They then paid tribute to those killed on November 1st last year in front of the Novi Sad Railway Station.
"Silence is no longer the solution"
Several high school students addressed their peers, emphasizing, among other things, that silence is no longer the solution.
A high school student from Crvena Reka, Bela Palanka municipality, wearing a raincoat and barefoot, with injured feet, addressed the adults and told them that banging on pots and pans doesn't change anything.
"This is a call - railway workers, leave the trains; workers, leave your factories - a general strike," he stressed.
One high school student said that high school students gathered in Novi Sad because they no longer want to remain silent.
"High school students came to Novi Sad on foot with the message that we must not accept injustice," she said.
According to her, they came to protest because they had lost too much.
"We are here today because we cannot remain silent. We are here today because we do not want to forget," she said.
A high school student from Belgrade said that they all walked together, in the rain and hail, "but full of meaning and full of faith to show that young people are the future."
"Youth are not just a statistic, but a driving force that will change this country," he said.
A representative of the citizens' councils in Novi Sad said that Novi Sad is a city that paid with human lives for the collapse of the rule of law, but also a city from which the fight against everything that led to that tragedy spread throughout the country.
Before the concerts by the groups Izkaz and Ritam nereda, teachers from Novi Sad high schools addressed the crowd and, among other things, said that high school students and students are winning freedom, slowly but surely.
Teachers and students also performed a performance in which they presented "How to become a student" through messages.
Bonus video:
