Serbian university students who say their fight for justice is being overlooked in much of Europe on Tuesday arrived to a hero’s welcome in the heart of the EU. They cycled more than 1,300km from the Balkan country.
About 80 students who set off on bicycles 13 days earlier on a journey to Strasbourg, France, were aiming to draw EU attention to their months-long protests against corruption in the Balkan nation.
Serbia is formally seeking membership in the 27-nation bloc, but has been backsliding in democratic freedoms and the rule of law.
Photo: AFP
They received an emotional welcome from hundreds of people, including members of the Serbian diaspora, and French students and supporters, upon arriving at the main square in Strasbourg where the European Parliament meets.
“I think that this protest action is a full success,” one of the cyclists said in a live N1 TV broadcast from Strasbourg where people gathered. “I think we have woken up Europe.”
Serbian university students have been a key force behind a nationwide anti-graft movement that includes almost daily street demonstrations that have rattled Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
Photo: Reuters
While they have garnered huge support at home and throughout the Balkans, many students feel that they have not received enough backing from the EU.
The students cycled 100km to 150km per day through Hungary, Slovakia, Austria and Germany before reaching Strasbourg, where they received a red-carpet welcome from Serbians living abroad and fellow students from the EU.
They braved heavy rain and chilling temperatures along their journey across Europe that included a hero’s welcome by supporters in Budapest, Vienna and in German towns.
The student-led protests in Serbia were triggered by the deaths of 16 people in a deadly train station canopy collapse in November last year, widely blamed on rampant corruption.
They have since come to reflect wider discontent with the state of democratic freedoms in Serbia.
The protesting students have been demanding justice for the people killed in the canopy collapse, and an end to government pressure and violence against protesters.
Vucic and media have accused the students and their professors of working against the state to topple the president together with unidentified Western security services.
The EU’s reaction to the student-led protests has been lukewarm and officials have refrained from criticizing Vucic.
In Strasbourg, the students planned to visit the Council of Europe and the European Parliament.
In Serbia on Tuesday, student-led protesters temporarily blocked the entrances to TV broadcaster RTS in Belgrade and the northern town of Novi Sad to protest its coverage of the events.
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