Thousands of Serbians blocked the main boulevard of the central city of Kragujevac on Saturday, the latest in a series of student-led protests over November last year’s deadly collapse of a train station roof.
The increasing pressure being applied by the university student-led movement has already forced the resignation of several high-ranking officials, including former prime minister Milos Vucevic at the end of last month.
Crowds gathered in the city center at the start of Serbia’s national statehood holiday calling for greater government accountability and reforms.
Photo: REUTERS
Protesters filled the streets well into the afternoon, waving flags marked with bloody handprints — the protests’ logo.
The Kragujevac blockade is the third day-long city demonstration, after Belgrade and Novi Sad a few weeks ago.
The collapse of the station roof in Novi Sad, which killed 15 people, followed extensive renovations to the building in the northern city.
The deaths fueled long-standing anger over corruption and demands for accountability.
At 10:52am, the time of the tragedy, protesters observed 15 minutes of silence to honor the victims.
The blockade was planned to last past midnight, which marks the anniversary of the first Serbian Constitution in 1835, one of the most progressive in Europe at the time.
Belgrade chemistry student Nikola Knezevic, 25, said it was important to hold protests beyond the capital. “To show not only Belgrade, but all these cities that support our demands, and that we support them. That is the message,” Knezevic said.
Dragana Mitic, 55, a professor from the same faculty, hailed the students for “fighting against corruption.”
Vladimir Petrovic, a 50-year-old from Kragujevac, said the students “awakened us from anesthesia,” as he served pies and sandwiches to the protesters.
“They have rekindled my hope,” he said.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic at a rally in the northern town of Sremska Mitrovica told thousands of supporters the country was being attacked from the outside “helped by many inside who manipulate our children.” He urged the protesters to engage in dialogue and to listen to him.
“Declare victory, you have had all your demands met, return to your benches,” he said. The government has already tried to meet some of the students’ demands in a bid to quell the months-long protests. However, the students in Kragujevac are continuing to call for greater transparency.
“None of the demands have been met by the competent institutions,” a letter from students read out at the protest said.
Ahead of Saturday’s rally, hundreds of students from Novi Sad, Belgrade and the southern city of Nis staged a four-day march that converged on Friday night at Kragujevac’s center.
“We are sending a message that this is a meeting with the people, with history and with the future that we are now building,” said one of the marchers, Milica Pavlovic, a 20-year-old electrical engineering student.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
RSS