BELGRADE – The official X account of the Student Movement announced today that students have reason to believe that a certain interest group will attempt to stage incidents in Belgrade tonight.
“The alleged target of the staged attack will be the editorial office of Informer, and they will try to shift the blame onto the students. We urge you not to respond to such calls and to critically assess the information that will be disseminated,” the statement reads.
The Student List added that it is clear who has an interest in portraying students as violent and emphasised that such attempts will not succeed.
Dejan Šoškić, one of the prominent candidates on the Student List, told N1 television that “it is very important to avoid any kind of provocation or violent behaviour.”
“Violent forms of behaviour – illegal and extra-institutional – should have no place in our country. We should now allow our country to recover with dignity,” Šoškić said.
Celebrations across Serbia following the Student List’s victory on 25 October have been overwhelmingly peaceful. On Monday evening, however, two incidents took place. In one, a group of people stormed the premises of Informer TV, the main mouthpiece of the outgoing Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which has relentlessly targeted its opponents for years.
That same evening, the building of Pink, another strongly pro-SNS television station, was attacked by a group of people. According to Nova.rs, during the attack on Pink, the destruction of a car was staged, and a man who appears in a video on social media as the “owner” of the damaged car is in fact connected to SNS.
Nova.rs interlocutors later assessed that both incidents targeting Informer and Pink had been staged. Conclusive evidence supporting that claim has yet to emerge.
Following the incidents on Monday, the Student List and numerous candidates on the list called on their supporters not to engage in any incidents and to celebrate their victory peacefully.
Andreas von Beckerath, the EU Ambassador to Serbia, urged everyone to refrain from violence.
“At the same time, we reiterate our call on the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM) to demonstrate independence and integrity in its work. We also remind all media outlets of their responsibility to contribute to a fair, responsible, and constructive public discourse,” von Beckerath said.
