Yesterday, chaos raged at the University of Novi Pazar, where the situation was quite tense, when masked thugs broke in and violently threw students out of the building.
Students returned to the University building during the day because the police, who had initially protected the attackers, withdrew, Nova.rs reports.
In the meantime, arrests have begun, which is why Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić also spoke out.
"I want to say that arrests have begun in Novi Pazar, four people have just been arrested. Four of those who used violence against the Serbian police and their fellow citizens, and the arrests will continue," said Vučić, who joined the pro-regime television program "Informer" by phone, N1 reports.
After the usual rhetoric, Vučić, in an interview with the aforementioned regime media outlet, sent a message to Serbs in Novi Pazar, who are allegedly afraid because of all the events, to be calm and that the state is stronger than all bullies, when a somewhat unexpected attack on the president of the Partizan football club, Rasim Ljajić, followed.
When asked during the interview why, for example, Rasim Ljajić, who, although not a state official, is the president of Partizan and the first man of the party that has a majority in Novi Pazar, does not send messages of peace, Vučić had a ready answer.
"He is a state official. Being the president of Partizan is one of the 10 most important positions in the country. There is no great philosophy there, these people sit in the government, these people have one of the most important ministries, these people have important agencies, leave those stories alone," said Vučić.
Ljajić, who has not held a position in the Serbian government for years, stated in a statement to Euronews Serbia that serious political messages should be drawn from yesterday's events, and that Novi Pazar "as a multiethnic city does not need private security, let alone insults on national and religious grounds."
However, as Ljajić adds, he believes that the Serbian public, both opposition and pro-government, does not have a clear idea of the events in Novi Pazar.
"And here the city authorities are to blame for not presenting all these events in an adequate and objective manner, although I admit that it was not easy. First of all, the original student protest over time took on the outlines of a political rebellion and was mostly taken over by civic and political activists that we all know well and who are the actors of all protest gatherings regardless of the occasion or reason. In 90 percent of the cases, it is more or less the same people. Second, their sole goal is to destabilize the local government, and then take over power in Pazar. The fight against Vučić and the alleged fight for democracy in Serbia are just a fig leaf that is meant to cover up the real intentions and motives of these same activists who, in the absence of their own support, are hiding behind the students. Third, the attempt by some media outlets to shift everything to a sensitive inter-ethnic terrain is transparent and so unconvincing that there is not a single citizen of Novi Pazar who will believe it. In the difficult, war-torn nineties, peace was preserved in Sandžak without a single incident on an ethnic basis thanks to the political maturity of Bosniaks and Serbs. Let's face it, Pazar is not an oasis of brotherhood-unity, but it is not the Beirut that many imagined it to be. And in recent days and months, there have been a lot of exaggerations in both directions," Ljajić said.
SDP, says Ljajić, is essentially the only relevant multiethnic party in the region since its founding, and many who have come to Pazar in the past want to lecture us "on the importance of living together."
One of the key points of the party program he founded, Ljajić notes, is the advocacy for the affirmation of constitutional patriotism.
"It is precisely because of an extremely moderate, rational and pragmatic stance that we are constantly exposed to attacks from the opposition corps, and now we are also seeing them from our coalition partners. That is why we will have a large working meeting with our membership in Pazar on Friday, and then we will also request talks with our partners in power about all the problems and open issues that exist in our relations," the SDP leader emphasized.
.
Bonus video:
