(2 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Belgrade, Serbia – 02 February 2025
1. Taxis with Serbian flag departing
2. Taxis departing from Belgrade with people applauding nearby
3. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Sava Jovanovic, taxi organizer:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOT 2++
"I think there will be around 500 taxis. Some taxi associations from Pancevo, Cacak, Valjevo and other parts of Serbia have joined. We are expecting them. This was all spontaneous. They are our children, our students, we are going to bring them home.”
4. Serbian flag waving on the roof of a taxi
5. Various of Serbian flags waving from taxis
6. Close of sign on taxi window reading (Serbian) "Taxi drivers for students”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Novi Sad, Serbia – 02 February 2025
7. Various top shots of taxis arriving at Novi Sad
8. People cheering and applauding as taxis arrive
9. Various of students heading and getting into taxis
10. Student waving from a taxi and leaving
STORYLINE:
After a two-day walk and a night out in the open, Belgrade university students on Sunday got a taxi ride home free of charge.
Hundreds of Serbian cabbies organized to pick up the students from the northern city of Novi Sad after a day-long blockade of bridges that is part of a widening anti-corruption movement gripping the Balkan nation.
“This was all spontaneous,” said Sava Jovanovic, one of the organizers of the action that illustrates a tide of sympathy and solidarity with the students.
“They are our children, our students, we are going to bring them home," said Jovanovic.
University students are leading the anti-graft demonstrations in Serbia which erupted after a concrete canopy crashed at the central train station in Novi Sad on Nov. 1, killing 15 people and severely injuring two others.
The protests have drawn huge crowds into the streets demanding justice over the Novi Sad tragedy which critics blame on sloppy renovation work fueled by government corruption.
Response among the taxi drivers was “exceptional," said Nikola Bogdanovic. Some 500 drivers, some from central Serbia, have joined in, he said.
Honking their car horns and many waving Serbian flags, the taxis headed from Belgrade to Novi Sad jointly in a huge column while greeted by passersby and other drivers. The cars were marked ‘student taxis.’
Upon arrival in Novi Sad, the taxis received a cheering welcome, passing under a huge banner reading: “Students will free the world.”
The students’ demands for the rule of law and accountability, their empathy for the victims, along with resilience and readiness for sacrifice to achieve justice, struck a chord in a disillusioned nation used to decades of perpetual crisis.
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