Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said in the early hours of today that the state will intervene and will not allow institutions to be destroyed, demolished and burned, Serbian national television RTS reported, quoted by BTA.
„People in Serbia should know that the state is stronger than anyone else. It was like that today, it will be like that tomorrow, it will always be like that. "The state of Serbia is a strong state, a serious state and a responsible state," Vucic said in an extraordinary statement following the riots that broke out late on the evening of September 5 during an anti-government protest in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad.
The Serbian head of state announced that 11 police officers were injured and several people were arrested during the clashes, speaking from the operational headquarters at the Serbian Ministry of Interior in Belgrade.
„There were direct calls on social media for lynching and violence against state authorities. These are ordinary cowards who attack people who are just doing their job. And they will never win," Vucic said in his extraordinary address.
He estimated that the Novi Sad protest tonight had a maximum of 7,020 people, while the rest of Serbia had seen 2,300 people, adding that the other protests, except for the one in Novi Sad, had gone well.
"Some, together with some members of the European Parliament, tried to threaten the stability of the state. With masks on their faces, they wanted to occupy the building of the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad at all costs and they failed," Vucic said.
Go destroy your country, don't destroy Serbia. Do you think I'm afraid of you? Not at all!“, Vučić said, adding that the MEPs would be prosecuted in accordance with Serbian laws.
The presence of MEPs at the protest in Novi Sad was also condemned by the Speaker of the Assembly, Ana Brnabić, and the chairman of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and former Prime Minister, Miloš Vučević.
Clashes broke out between police and demonstrators in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad during a protest under the slogan “Serbia, can you hear us?“, Serbian media reported.
The protest in Novi Sad, where 16 people died in a train station accident 10 months ago, was called by students participating in the blockade of the local university. Protests were also organized in other cities, including Niš, Užice and Čačak.
The students said the protest was a response to “police violence“, as well as the “unjustified presence of police officers in the buildings of two faculties in Novi Sad“.
Since late August and early September, at the request of the university administration, police cordons have been deployed in the buildings of the faculties of philosophy and sports in Novi Sad.
After the initial reaction during the protest in front of the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, police and gendarmerie units equipped to fight riots continued to push back the demonstrators, who had dispersed in several directions in the city, Beta news agency reported.
Some of the protesters held lit torches, others raised their hands and chanted vulgar slogans against Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, the Fonet agency reported.
Most of those gathered in Novi Sad wore masks, goggles, scarves and other protective gear, and organizers warned parents not to bring their children to the protest.
Citizens sporadically attacked the police with shouts and threw stones and flares, and the security forces responded with tear gas, the Beta agency reported.
There were several emergency teams on the street, there were injured citizens, but their number cannot be established at this time, regional television channel En1 reported.
Serbia has been organizing mass anti-government protests for several months, led by students, demanding early elections and punishment for those responsible for the deaths of 16 people who died when the canopy of a railway station collapsed in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad on November 1 last year.