Belgrade (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Thousands of people joined demonstrating students in Serbia for a protest against alleged injustice and corruption, many proclaiming “We deserve better.”
Protesters from across the nation gathered in Nis, sound 200 kilometers from Belgrade, for Saturday’s festival-style protest that was expected to last for 18 hours. Students expressed the event, during which a regulation would be symbolically passed, was “a wakeup call to move from apathy to action, from silence to a noisy struggle for a better future … our pledge never to give up!”
“We want the (state) institutions that work in the interest of all of us and not to our damage,”
the students expressed in a statement.
“We want a system that values knowledge and work, and not obedience and silence.”
Citizens in Nis orchestrated a noisy welcome for the students as they strode into the city after walking for several days in groups from various approaches. These student protests have become a strong force in Serbia’s rural regions, which are traditionally pro-government.
How has the train station collapse fueled public anger?
Students from universities in the Balkan country that has been headed firmly by a populist government for over a decade have been carrying nationwide protests since the deadly train station canopy failure in November, which killed 15 people, and which analysts accuse of government corruption.
The almost daily demonstrations regularly draw tens of thousands of people and have discouraged President Aleksandar Vucic’s firm hold on power. Vucic has portrayed the protests as a Western-orchestrated endeavor to unseat him from power.
The station building had been refurbished twice in recent years as part of a broader infrastructure work with Chinese state firms. Many in Serbia acknowledge the work on the building was derelict and neglected construction safety rules because of overall corruption.
