BELGRADE: Forty-two people were detained at an anti-government protest in the Serbian city of Novi Sad where police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd, the interior minister said on Saturday.
Several thousand people rallied in Novi Sad late Friday seeking early elections in the latest in a series of student-led protests across Serbia sparked by the fatal collapse of the northern city’s train station roof last November.
The tragedy, which killed 16 people, was widely blamed on entrenched corruption, with protesters’ demands for a transparent investigation growing into calls for snap elections.
“Students have one urgent demand: Call elections,” read a large banner carried by the protesters on Friday.
After speeches the protesters marched toward the city’s university campus where police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse them.
Protesters had earlier thrown flares and bottles at the police, according to the Beta news agency.
Thirteen police officers were injured in a “massive and brutal attack” by the protesters and 42 people were detained, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told state-run RTS television on Saturday.
The protesters attacked police in front of the faculty of philosophy throwing stones, flares and with bars, he said.
Violence against police was “appalling and apparently planned” to be used as a “political fuel to raise tensions,” the minister stressed.
Almost daily demonstrations, piling pressure on President Aleksandar Vucic, mainly passed off peacefully. But in mid-August they degenerated into violence that protesters blamed on heavy-handed tactics by government loyalists and police.
Authorities have rejected allegations of brutality, despite videos showing officers beating unarmed protesters and accusations that activists were assaulted while in custody.
Vucic late Friday accused the protesters of trying to “threaten the stability and security of Serbia” and “occupy the university premises in Novi Sad.”
“People in Serbia should know that the state is stronger than anyone ... that will always be the case,” he said.
Pro-government rallies will be held across Serbia on Sunday, the president added.
The protests have led to the resignation of the prime minister and the collapse of his government.
But Vucic has so far brushed off demands for snap elections and alleges the demonstrations, the largest of which have drawn hundreds of thousands of people, are part of a foreign plot.
