(1 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nis, Serbia – 1 March 2025
1. Top shot of protest
2. Various of lit flares and crowds at the protest
3. Pan of the protest
4. Flags and lit flare
5. Man blowing whistle
6. People waving Serbian flags
7. Various of protest
8. Heart shaped balloon reading “1.3.” (March 1) with Serbian flag
9. People at the protest
10. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Maja Vitomirovic, Beograd resident:
"I support these youths so (they) can finally make some change, to live in a state governed by law, in a state that is organized where we can all live freely and in a humane way.”
11. Protest
12. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Branko Damjanovic, Kraljevo resident:
"I am here to support students and to finally fight for a more just society here in Serbia. It’s time for us to wake up and see that we are all equal before the law.”
13. Various protesters with lit flares
14. Top shot of protest, lit flares
STORYLINE:
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday joined the protesting students in Serbia for a rally proclaiming that “we deserve better” and will no longer accept injustice and corruption in the Balkan country that has been ruled firmly by a populist government for over a decade.
University students in Serbia are leading nationwide protests that started after a deadly collapse of a train station canopy in November that killed 15 people and critics blamed on government corruption.
Almost daily protests since November have been the biggest gatherings in years, drawing tens of thousands of people and rattling President Aleksandar Vucic’s firm grip on power.
“We want the (state) institutions that work in the interest of all of us and not to our damage,” the students said in a statement. “We want a system that values knowledge and work, and not obedience and silence.”
People from all over the country have flocked in Nis, some 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Belgrade for the student-organized rally on Saturday.
The festival-style gathering is expected to last for 18 hours and symbolically pass a ‘student edict.’
With their determination, energy and creativity, protesting university students have garnered widespread support among the citizens who largely have been disillusioned with mainstream politicians and have lost hope of changes.
Serbia is formally on the path toward European Union membership but Vucic and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party have been accused of stifling democratic freedoms and fuelling rampant corruption since coming to power a decade ago.
Vucic has described the protests as a Western-orchestrated attempt to oust him from power.
The protest rally in Nis on Saturday marked four months since the concrete canopy at the central train station in the northern city of Novi Sad crashed down on Nov. 1 without warning on the people walking or sitting below.
Previously similar rallies were held in Novi Sad and in the central city of Kragujevac.
The station building in Novi Sad had been renovated twice in recent years as part of a wider infrastructure work with Chinese state companies. Many in Serbia believe the work on the building was sloppy and disregarded construction safety rules because of widespread corruption.
AP video shot by Ivana Bzganovic and Marko Drobnjakovic
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