Eurasia Press & News
Supporters of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party members, protected by police, clashed with protesters again in major Serbian cities on Thursday night as months of anti-corruption demonstrations erupted into civil unrest for a fifth consecutive night.
In cities and towns across the country, protesters mostly demonstrated at Progressive Party (SNS) premises, which were guarded by two rings of security: party activists – burly men armed with fireworks, rocks, bottles and wooden sticks – and police. Several dozen people were arrested in the clashes, authorities said.
In one incident witnessed by a BIRN reporter in the capital Belgrade, SNS activists intentionally targeted journalists covering the protests. BIRN reporters said police appeared to only be trying to disperse protesters, while tolerating violence committed by the SNS party activists.
In Serbia’s second city Novi Sad, where a fatal railway station disaster caused the initial spark for the demonstrations last November, three SNS offices were smashed up by protesters. Protesters accuse President Aleksandar Vucic and his SNS party, in power for 13 years, of corruption and authoritarianism.
The Interior Ministry insisted that the use of force by police was justified to counter violence by protesters.
In Belgrade, clashes broke out near ruling party office in Kneza Milosa Street, in the city centre, near the government complex and in front of three SNS party offices in the New Belgrade district.
In the city centre, after protesters were prevented from reaching the SNS party office clashes erupted when small fireworks were thrown towards SNS activists, who responded by fighting back with more heavy-duty pyrotechnic devices.
As police started to push protesters back from the SNS office, a group of journalists and members of the public, who remained between the lines, were targeted by SNS activists who cursed and threatened them while chasing people down one of the streets. This caused a stampede as people ran for safety or tried to hide.
The protesters were pushed back to the major Terazije and Slavija squares where, videos posted on social media show, police used force against them, chasing people for around three hours, occasionally using tear gas.
A member of the opposition Freedom and Justice Party member, MP Pedja Mitrovic, sustained injures to the head, saying he was attacked by “seven or eight masked hooligans”.
“They started hitting me on the head and legs with sticks, they started harassing me, insulting me. When I realised that they had no idea what they were doing and that it could go very far, I took cover and ran away, because I saw that I was dealing with people who were obviously not in their right mind,” Mitrovic said after the attack.
In the New Belgrade district, police used tear gas to push demonstrators far away from the local SNS headquarters, where people had gathered.
After the demonstrators moved to another, smaller SNS premises a few streets away, police responded harshly to heckling and the throwing of smoke bombs by participants, firing several tear gas canisters simultaneously. Some were fired at demonstrators who were standing farther away from the police cordon and the SNS premises.
Around 11 p.m., when demonstrators set one container on fire, more police arrived in at least seven armoured police vehicles, pushing demonstrators further away from the SNS premises. Some windows of parked cars in the neighbourhood were broken.
In the city of Novi Sad, where there had been intense clashes on previous nights as SNS supporters threw fireworks at protesters, police and military presence in and around SNS party offices had triggered additional anger among those demonstrating.
Three party offices, on Strazilovska Street, Liberation Boulevard and Kosovska Street, were trashed by protesters. All three premises were empty and had been left unguarded.
After the Kosovska Street office was ransacked, police moved in to disperse people from the scene, using force and tear gas.
There were also reports of police using force against protesters in the cities of Nis, Valjevo and Pancevo, while in other cities protests were also held but went off without incidents.
Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told media around midnight that 37 people had been arrested so far, most of them in Belgrade, but said more arrests would follow.
Dacic justified the police’s use of force, claiming that protesters were attacking officers.
“The police intervened, using chemical agents where necessary, to repulse an attack on the police,” he said.
The clashes in recent days represent a serious escalation after months of student-led protests that erupted last November amid anger over high-level corruption in the wake of the Novi Sad railway station disaster.
