BELGRADE – Tens of thousands of students, farmers and citizens gathered on 22 December in Slavija Square and surrounding streets in downtown Belgrade to demand responsibility for the collapse of a canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad that killed 15 people on 1 November, as well as sanctions for the subsequent attackers on protesting students.
According to the data provided by the organization “Arhiv javih skupova”, which has estimated the attendance of public gatherings since 1991, about 100,000 people attended the protest, making it one of the biggest in the history of Serbia. Police issued a statement assessing that between 28,000 and 29,000 citizens participated.
Prior to the rally, in a statement on their official social networks, the organisers said that the protest was “a non-partisan, students’ initiative” and that “representatives of political parties are not welcome”.
The protest is a culmination of the student protests which started in late November, following a physical attack on the students of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts who were commemorating the victims of the Novi Sad tragedy on the street. These students subsequently entered a blockade of their faculty, kickstarting a wave of blockades across Serbia’s universities, leading to the largest student mobilization in Serbia since the 1990s.
“More citizens took to the streets in the Serbian capital than on 5 October 2000”
“Arhiv javnih skupova” estimated that more citizens took to the streets on Sunday than during the mass demonstrations in Belgrade which ended the rule of Slobodan Milošević on 5 October 2000. Smaller public rallies were also held in the cities of Niš and Kragujevac.
Slavija Square went silent for 15 minutes on Sunday late afternoon in the action of paying tribute to the victims at the railway station in Novi Sad, as part of the protest of numerous citizens, who gathered at the invitation of students and farmers, who have also been holding parallel protests. The protesters stood in absolute silence for 15 minutes, with the lights on their phones facing the sky.

Afterwards, the action called “Half an Hour of Noise” began. Citizens made noise using whistles and vuvuzelas, chanting: “Vučić, go away”, referring to the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić.
Some of the participants held large banners reading: ”We are all under the canopy”, “You have blood on your hands”, “General strike”, as well as “Belgrade is the world again” in the reference to the 1990s protests, which were also marked by the participation of students.
After the protest, students headed to their faculties where the blockades have been taken place. The protest was peaceful, with no major incidents.
What do the students demand?
The public rallies have been held since 1 November in Novi Sad, Belgrade and other cities and towns across Serbia. The students have been blockading faculty buildings since the end of November and the entire University of Belgrade and University of Novi Sad have entered the blockade during December.
Many high school pupils, as well as the teachers and education unions, backed the students. In the context of the rising number of students blocking their high schools, the Government of Serbia declared the end of the school semester a week earlier than originally planned.
Some of the students’ key demands include the release of complete documentation regarding the Novi Sad train station reconstruction project and the prosecution of the individuals who attacked Faculty of Dramatic Arts students during a protest on 22 November. The list of persons who attacked the students and whose prosecution is demanded has grown in recent weeks as the attacks on protesters continued to occur.

Since the collapse of the canopy in Novi Sad, opposition parties have demanded the resignation of the government and the prosecution of persons who are responsible. In late November, the prosecution charged a total of 13 people, including former Minister of Construction Goran Vesić, for the tragedy, and the cases against them are ongoing.
Part of the public, however, continues to mistrust the judiciary and stresses that there have been no charges of corruption in relation to the Novi Sad railway station reconstruction, which was completed earlier this year. Experts have estimated that the price of the reconstruction, which was non-transparent and carried out without public competition, was inflated, which is suspected to be the case for many infrastructure projects in Serbia.
Vučić: All of the students’ demands have been met
Shortly after Sunday’s protest, Serbian President Vučić posted a video on his Instagram account in which he stated that the “extremely large gathering” of people who, as he added, were “opposition-oriented” took place in Belgrade.
“I believe that a lot of people think differently, so we have to listen to each other so that it would be established as a value and a different relationship in the future”, Vučić stressed.
However, in his earlier addresses to the media, Vučić claimed that all of the students’ demands had been met and that he did not accept any additional ones. Students dispute that their demands have been met.
“They can do whatever they want as long as they do not endanger people’s safety. Unlike some other countries, we will not send police or other forces to universities. We respect university autonomy,” he said.
Similarly, Miloš Vučević, Serbian Prime Minister stated on Monday that it was indisputable that there had been a lot of people at the protest in Slavija, but that he did not “fully understand” what the demands were.
Vučević also addressed the demand for a transitional government which was not officially made by either students or opposition but has been raised as a suggestion by several commentators critical of the government.
“They want to show that the institutions are not functioning, they want to paralyse the state and that the way out of this situation is a transitional government. Now there is a problem, they will never get a mandate for the composition of the transitional government from the President of the Republic”, Vučević said.