(14 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cumic, Serbia – 14 February 2025
1. Cars driving in front of Serbian students marching towards the city of Kragujevac
2. Various of students matching carrying Serbian flags
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Luznice, Serbia – 14 February 2025
3. Luznice residents waiting for students with refreshments and food
4. Various of food and refreshments
5. Luznice residents standing on side of road waiting for students
6. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Ivan Karic, Luznice, Luznice resident:
"We expect changes. We are here to support all our young people, our friends. We want changes. That’s it. We don’t want lies anymore.”
7. Serbian flag
8. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Stevan Lazic, Luznice resident:
"The majority of people in our Serbia support the students’ requests and I hope that it will come to that, that they will be fulfilled. We will see.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cumic, Serbia – 14 February 2025
9. Students marching
STORYLINE:
Striking university students in Serbia were on Friday marching towards the town of Kragujevac, where a weekend anti-graft rally is expected to gather tens of thousands of people.
Students organized marches from various parts of the country toward the central town ahead of Saturday’s event. Some walked, others ran or cycled.
Wherever they came, people greeted the students with food and refreshments and offered accommodation, many crying with a new sense of hope and joy.
In the village of Luznice, some 20 kilometres (about 12 miles) from Kragujevac, residents could be seen waiting roadside for the students.
"We are here to support all our young people, our friends. We want changes. That’s it. We don’t want lies anymore,” said Ivan Karic, one supporter of the protest movement.
The students are demanding justice, respect of the rule of law and an end to rampant corruption.
Both Serbia’s students and populist President Aleksandar Vucic are organizing rallies to mark a national statehood holiday on Saturday but with completely opposite messages that reflect political turmoil in the Balkan country and mounting calls for changes.
In Sremska Mitrovica, a small town northwest of Belgrade, Vucic aims to recycle an old nationalist theme, warning of alleged separatism threatening Serbia’s unity.
Vucic, who has ruled Serbia with a firm grip for more than a decade, is facing the biggest challenge yet from a nationwide anti-graft movement that erupted after a concrete canopy on a railway station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed in November killing 15 people.
The collapse has become a flashpoint for wider discontent with Vucic’s rule.
The president and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party have imposed tight control over the state institutions and mainstream media while facing accusations of stifling democratic freedoms, attacking opponents and rigging elections.
University students have been at the forefront of the anti-graft uprising.
Their determination, youth and creativity have struck a cord among the residents who are widely disillusioned with politicians and have lost faith that substantial changes are possible.
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