BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia ’s protesting university students are gearing up this weekend for their first big rally of the year, in a renewed push for major political changes in the Balkan country run by the authoritarian President Aleksandar Vucic. Thousands of people are expected to gather on Saturday from all over Serbia in the capital, Belgrade. Serbia’s youth movement was behind a wave of mass anti-corruption street protests that shook Vucic last year. Now, students say their sights are set on approaching elections later this year or next that they hope would oust Vucic’s right-wing populist government.“We hope a lot of people will come and spend the day with us, and then continue to support the students because we are preparing for the elections,” youth representative Isidora Jovanovic told The Associated Press. “Serbia needs a change, and students will bring that change.”
The venue on Saturday will be Belgrade’s Slavija Square, the scene of a huge anti-government protest last March. That rally ended in a sudden disruption that experts later said — and the government denied — involved the use of a sonic weapon against peaceful demonstrators.
1 MIN READ
2 MIN READ
Police at the square on Tuesday separated Vucic’s loyalists from the students who were printing their “Students win” slogans. Days earlier, an elderly man was injured when a driver broke up a traffic blockade in central Belgrade.
