Students blockaded the state-owned TV station RTS in the capital Belgrade and state-owned RTV in the country's second-largest city Novi Sad on Tuesday.
On Monday evening, when the blockade began, the demonstrators were met by riot police who tried to disperse the crowd. Videos on social media show how heavily equipped police moved through a group of students and hit some of them with batons, according to independent Balkan Insight.
A massive protest is planned for the weekend in Belgrade – described by the demonstrators as the final point for the government-critical protests that have been going on for over three months.
Ever since the tragedy in Novi Sad in November, when 15 people died when the roof of a train station collapsed, university students and others have been protesting almost daily against President Aleksandar Vucic's rule. Many in Serbia believe that the accident was caused by substandard renovation work due to widespread state corruption.
Threatened Demonstrators
The students accuse the state-owned TV stations of biased reporting and taking the president's side. The atmosphere became even more tense on Monday evening, when Vucic visited one of the channels and was given free rein to insult and threaten the demonstrators ahead of Saturday's planned protest.
The president claimed that he would never give in to the demands to step down.
You must kill me if you want to replace me, he said.
Vucic, who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest allies in Europe, has repeatedly described the protests as a Western-orchestrated plot to force him from power.
Larger than Milosevic Protests
On Tuesday, Vucic is meeting Donald Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, in Belgrade. The purpose of the meeting is unclear, according to AP, but Vucic is an outspoken supporter of the American president as well.
Vucic and his nationalist-conservative and right-wing populist party SNS have held power in Serbia in an iron grip for over a decade. Despite Serbia's formal desire to join the EU, allegations of lacking democratic rights have been pouring in.
The current protests, which have gathered tens of thousands of people in several cities, are said to be larger than those that led to the fall of authoritarian leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. The discontent poses the greatest challenge to the rule since Vucic came to power in 2012, according to Balkan Insight.
On November 1, 2024, in the midst of rush hour, a 48-meter-long concrete roof on the train station in Novi Sad in northern Serbia collapsed.
15 people died, including a six-year-old child. Two more were injured.
The train station was built in 1964 and had been renovated between 2021 and 2024, just a few months before the collapse. The accident is still under investigation.
Shortly after the tragedy, demonstrators began gathering in Novi Sad. The protests spread quickly across Serbia, driven by widespread discontent with the government. The demonstrators accuse President Aleksandar Vucic's government of, among other things, mismanagement, corruption, and media censorship.
In late December, 13 people, including the country's former transport minister Goran Vesic, were charged in connection with the accident in Novi Sad. Vesic announced his resignation shortly afterwards.
In late January, Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, who is largely subordinate to President Vucic, also announced his resignation. However, it has not yet taken place, as his resignation has not been taken up in parliament.
