(30 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Batajnica, Serbia – 30 January 2025
1. Various of students marching along road
2. People cheering on students from side of road
3. Woman filming students with mobile phone and wiping away tears
4. Mid of people cheering and filming from side of road
5. Various of people giving out food to students
6. Wide of Aleksandar Baucal, psychology professor at Belgrade University, speaking
7. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Aleksandar Baucal, psychology professor at Belgrade University:
“I think part of the answer is that we have had a wrong perception of the young people who live around us. For years, a narrative was established that the youth are interested only in themselves and in social networks, but now they have shown that we didn’t recognize their interest in the world they live in.”
8. Close of Baucal
9. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Aleksandar Baucal, psychology professor at Belgrade University:
“This was a public structure, a structure that was renovated by the state and according to the laws and procedures that are in effect here, a lot of people are involved in this. It’s very hard for anyone to convince us that this roof canopy fell on its own, out of the blue. Besides that, the fact is that a lot of people who use the railway station tell us that all of us could have been the victims, like in a game of Russian roulette. It was only a question of time as to who would be under that canopy, and that created a sense of solidarity with all of the victims.”
10. Various of students marching with flags and placards
STORYLINE:
Hundreds of Serbian university students on Thursday started an 80-kilometer (50-mile) march toward the northern city of Novi Sad, the latest endeavor in their widening protest movement over a deadly overhang collapse in November that killed 15 people.
The students packed food, water and extra clothes and set off from the capital, Belgrade.
They plan to arrive in two days in Novi Sad, where a massive blockade of the city bridges over the Danube is planned for Saturday to mark three months since the huge concrete construction at the railway station fell on the people below on November 1.
Students were greeted along the way by cheering citizens, honking their car horns or coming out of their homes with offers of refreshments, fruit or pancakes.
The march illustrates the determination of Serbia’s striking university students, who have been camping at their faculties for the past two months while organizing daily protests, some drawing tens of thousands of people for the largest street gatherings in years in the Balkan country.
Aleksandar Baucal, a psychology professor at Belgrade’s Faculty of Philosophy said the student protests had been somewhat of a surprise.
“For years, a narrative was established that the youth are interested only in themselves and in social networks, but now they have shown that we didn’t recognize their interest in the world they live in.”
Weeks-long demonstrations have already forced the resignation of Serbia’s prime minister Milos Vucevic this week, along with various concessions from the authorities unused to making them.
The protests also reflect wider popular discontent in Serbia with President Aleksandar Vucic’s increasingly authoritarian rule.
The president and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party have imposed a firm grip on all state institutions and mainstream media while facing accusations of stifling democratic freedoms, despite promises to lead Serbia into the European Union.
AP video shot by Ivana Bzganovic
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