The first protests began in Novi Sad immediately after the tragedy, in November 2024. At first, activists, journalists, and just ordinary people gathered there. They were angry with the government — they wanted to show that they were fed up with corruption and lies from the authorities. Later, students took up the initiative.
Emergency crews are cleaning up the aftermath of the collapse of a concrete canopy at a railway station in the city of Novi Sad, November 1, 2024. Local residents light candles near the train station in the city of Novi Sad as a sign of mourning for the dead, November 2, 2024. Protesters demand the resignation of the Minister of Construction, Belgrade, November 3, 2024.
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The escalation began with violence by the authorities.
On November 22, an organized group associated with the ruling party attacked students and teachers during a memorial service for the dead. The first arrests of students took place in Belgrade in the winter. The impetus was an interview that several students gave on independent television. Protesters began to be summoned for interrogation, detained, and taken to unknown locations. These were not just police officers, but the BIA special service.
They were mostly detained for 48-72 hours, had some conversations, and then released due to “lack of evidence”. Whenever we learned that someone had been detained, we went to the police stations or places where they were being held, organized a protest, and provided lawyers from among the lawyers who support the student movement. The peak of detentions fell on the winter, now there are significantly fewer of them, but I do not exclude that we simply may not know about them.
Police search students, January 21, 2025.
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In response to the violence, students began to block universities or individual faculties across the country.
This began a wave of student meetings and votes on whether other universities would join the blockade. During the blockade, students do not go to classes, do not take exams, and do not let strangers into the university premises. The decision to block is made not by university administrations, but by the students themselves. The administrations are simply asked: are you with us or against us? At first, our academy supported us. We communicate with the administration via e-mail and special “contact groups”.
The blockade of universities is a systematic, well-organized effort.
We actually live in the academy, spending the night several days a week. We organized the structure ourselves: there is security — students who are on duty at the entrance to the building. You canʼt get inside without a student ID. There were cases when pro-government activists came and provoked students. In addition to security, there is a team of donors — those who publish posts on social networks with requests to collect food, hygiene products, mattresses, etc. There is a logistics team — these are students with cars who transport these things. For example, before the big protest on March 15, we transported pillows, sleeping bags, and everything necessary from New Belgrade to Old Belgrade. Instead of classes, we have duty schedules for different groups.
Universities coordinate their work at meetings of delegates — one or two people from each faculty, so, for example, from 50 faculties, thatʼs about 100 people. At these meetings, all key issues are decided by voting.
Student protest in the city of Novi Sad, January 24, 2025.
Milica Blagojević; Personal archives of heroes / «Бабель»
The authorities are putting pressure on university administrations.
The university staff is working, there are cleaners and real security guards — they receive salaries. The teachers are a different story. When we started the strike last December, the teachers of our university supported us, although they did not take direct part in the protests. However, later the Ministry of Education began to put pressure on them — they stopped paying their salaries. Those who support the government receive part or even full salaries. And those who support the students receive meager amounts — about 90 euro cents per month. Because of this, the professors are indignant and direct their anger at us — it is difficult to survive without money.
Ordinary people who come out to protest also hold meetings — they go out into the streets and vote as a community: they support the students or put forward their own proposals. If they decide to protest, then we say at our student meeting: We will support our community and go to protest with them. This is a kind of democratic movement without unified leaders.
The authorities are shaking up the protest with the help of paid provocateurs.
Most of them are former prisoners or representatives of national minorities who live in a special camp in one of the parks in Belgrade for money. The authorities and pro-government media portray this camp as an opposition camp, that is, that these are students who want to study and oppose the blockade. But this is not so. These people leave the camp only when there are rallies nearby to provoke clashes or attack protesters.
Inside the camp they feel protected — they are supported by the police, they receive money (40-50 euros a day), some use drugs. Sometimes, when they attack students, the police still detain them, because they partly support the protesters themselves, but work is work. There are police officers who stand by and do nothing. But there are also those who clearly want to beat us, push us and use batons.
The blockade of universities will continue until the authorities fulfill all our demands.
- Provide full documentation related to the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station. By mid-December, the authorities had opened more than 140 documents, but key parts have still not been made public, including details of contracts and financial agreements.
- Investigate and prosecute all those who committed violence during peaceful protests.
- Drop all criminal charges against students who were detained and taken for questioning.
- Increase spending on higher education by 20%. The idea is for the state to compensate for half of the education costs of contract students at state universities. The government has partially fulfilled this requirement — the parliament adopted a corresponding decision, and 12 billion dinars were allocated from the budget reserve. But in reality, things are not so simple: some students were refunded their money, some were not. In fact, this “discount” works selectively and unpredictably — some receive money now, while others will have to wait for years.
In early May 2025, students put forward a new demand — to hold early parliamentary elections. The authorities ignored it.
The government media distorts information about the student protests.
Most of the Serbian media are pro-government channels that spread lies about us. The authorities and the state media call us "agents of the West" and participants in the "color revolution". People, mostly older people, watch this kind of television. They have been fed the same lies for over 10 years. They have no opinion of their own, but only the opinion of the president. And it is these people who often come out to scold us on the streets, curse our families, and call us traitors.
Thousands of protesters with flags marched through the center of Belgrade on March 15, 2025.
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