Demos not only in Belgrade
Mass protests in Serbia never end
6/18/2023 1:03 am
After two devastating killing sprees in Serbia, there is a veritable wave of protests in the country that seems to have no end. People are now coming together for the seventh time to demonstrate against violence and the government.
According to media reports, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Belgrade and three other cities against the violence in Serbia. It was the seventh straight protest after two shootings in May killed 18 people. Participants in the Belgrade rally gathered in front of the parliament building in the center of the Serbian capital on Saturday evening. In two separate columns, they marched to the city freeway, where they blocked a section for two hours.
Further demonstrations took place in the major cities of Novi Sad, Nis and Kragujevac. The participants in the rallies demanded the resignation of President Aleksandar Vucic and the officials responsible for the security apparatus. They accused Vucic and the tabloid media he controlled of creating a climate of hatred and violence. Left-wing and liberal opposition parties and civil movements had called for the rally.
A 13-year-old shot nine classmates and a security guard in a Belgrade school in early May. A day later, a 21-year-old shot people in a village near Belgrade, killing eight of them. The two acts, which are not directly related, deeply shocked Serbian society.
A few weeks ago, Serbia extended the deadline for surrendering illegal weapons to June 30. Until this date, citizens can hand them in with no penalty. So far, tens of thousands of handguns and explosive devices have been brought to the authorities. The history of Serbia is shaped by the wars in the 1990s, such as the Yugoslav war, the Croatian war and the Kosovo war. The call for anonymous and impunity arms surrender was one of the measures taken by the Serbian government after the shootings.