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BELGRADE: Dozens of anti-government protesters were detained during clashes with riot police in Serbia’s capital on Saturday during a massive rally against populist President Aleksandar Vucic demanding an early parliamentary election.
The protest by tens of thousands of demonstrators was held after nearly eight months of persistent dissent led by Serbia’s university students that have rattled Vucic’s firm grip on power in the Balkan country.
The huge crowd chanted: “We want elections!” as they filled the capital’s central Slavija Square and several blocks around it, with many unable to reach the venue.
Dozens of detained protesters handcuffed
Police handcuffed detained protesters, and an officer was seen injured on the ground during street battles in central Belgrade that lasted several hours. Six police officers and an unknown number of citizens were injured, police said.
“Serbia always wins in the end,” President Vucic said in an Instagram post.
Vucic, a former extreme nationalist, has become increasingly authoritarian since coming to power more than a decade ago. Though he formally says he wants Serbia to join the European Union, critics say Vucic has stifled democratic freedoms as he strengthened ties with Russia and China.
As the protest formally ended, the demonstrators threw eggs, plastic bottles and other objects at riot police who were preventing the crowd from approaching a downtown park. At the park, hundreds of Vucic’s loyalists have been camping for months to form a human shield in front of his headquarters in the capital.
Serbia’s Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said participants in the protest attacked the police. He said police used their powers to restore public order and “arrest all those who attacked the police.”
Police later said dozens of “hooligans” were detained but did not provide the exact number.
Some demonstrators wore scarfs and masks over their faces as they clashed with law enforcement, using garbage cans as protection against baton wielding police. Police used pepper spray before pushing protesters with their shields.
Tensions were high before and during the gathering as riot police deployed around government buildings.
“Elections are a clear way out of the social crisis caused by the deeds of the government, which is undoubtedly against the interests of their own people,” said a student who didn’t give her name while addressing the crowd from a stage. “Today, on June 28, 2025, we declare the current authorities illegitimate.”
University students playing a key role
At the end of the official part of the rally, students told the crowd to “take freedom into your own hands.”
University students have been a key force behind nationwide anti-corruption demonstrations that started after a renovated rail station canopy collapsed, killing 16 people on Nov. 1.
Many blamed the concrete roof crash on rampant government corruption and negligence in state infrastructure projects, leading to recurring mass protests.
“We are here today because we cannot take it any more,” student Darko Kovacevic said. “This has been going on for too long. We are mired in corruption.”
Vucic and his right-wing Serbian Progressive Party have repeatedly refused the demand for an early vote and accused protesters of planning to spur violence on orders from abroad, which they didn’t specify or provide evidence of.
Vucic’s authorities have launched a crackdown on Serbia’s striking universities and other opponents, while increasing pressure on independent media as they tried to curb the demonstrations.
While numbers have shrunk in recent weeks, the massive showing for Saturday’s anti-Vucic rally suggested that the resolve persists, despite relentless pressure and after nearly eight months of almost daily protests.
Serbian police, who are firmly controlled by Vucic’s government, said 36,000 people were present at the start of the protest Saturday. An independent monitoring group that records public gatherings said around 140,000 people attended the student-led rally.
Saturday marks St. Vitus Day, a religious holiday and the date when Serbs mark a 14th-century battle against Ottoman Turks in Kosovo that was the start of hundreds of years of Turkish rule, holding symbolic importance.
In their speeches, some of the speakers at the student rally Saturday evoked the theme, which was also used to fuel Serbian nationalism in the 1990s that later led to the incitement of ethnic wars following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
Vucic supporters bused in to Belgrade
Hours before the student-led rally, Vucic’s party bused in scores of its own supporters to Belgrade from other parts of the country, many wearing T-shirts reading: “We won’t give up Serbia.” They were joining a camp of Vucic’s loyalists in central Belgrade where they have been staying in tents since mid-March.
In a show of business as usual, Vucic handed out presidential awards in the capital to people he deemed worthy, including artists and journalists. “People need not worry — the state will be defended and thugs brought to justice,” he told reporters Saturday.
Serbian presidential and parliamentary elections are due in 2027.
Earlier this week, police arrested several people accused of allegedly plotting to overthrow the government and banned entry into the country, without explanation, to several people from Croatia and a theater director from Montenegro.
Serbia’s railway company halted train service over an alleged bomb threat in what critics said was an apparent bid to prevent people from traveling to Belgrade for the rally.
Authorities made similar moves in March, before the biggest ever anti-government protest in the Balkan country, which drew hundreds of thousands of people.