Protest Serbian leaders attract more than 100,000 people in the largest crowd to date
A student-led protest in Serbia gathered more than 100,000 people during a huge and peaceful street demonstration in the Serbian capital Belgrade on Saturday, ignoring the warning from the country's embattled strongman leader that months of unrest were plunging into violence.
Saturday’s rally was the biggest influx of public dissatisfaction in decades, after a warning from President Aleksandar Vucic and his wide media outlets that protesters are planning violent attacks to create a “civil war” and seize power.
Opposition politicians have added to the uneasiness by claiming they received information from secret plans within Serbia's secret plans for arresting Mr. Vucic's political rival.
But Saturday's rally began outside the Belgrade Parliament Building and quickly swallowed downtown without major events. Supporters of President Vucic gathered in a park near the parliament and threw stones at students. But there is concern that the government will deploy war veterans and football hooligans associated with organized crime gangs to defeat protesters, just like in the past – not achieved.
Belgrade police said the number of protesters was 107,000, while students from the University of Belgrade School of Drama Arts helped organize the rally, setting the turnout at 800,000.
Speaking at a press conference Saturday night, Mr Vucic described the rally as “a massive protest against the huge negative energy of the authorities.” He said 56 people were injured and were not valued and praised his security services in order to thwart what he called a violent plan.
He added that his government “understands the protesters’ message” and that “we will have to change ourselves.” He said that while there was no indication of what this change might be, “citizens don’t want a color revolution,” a term coined by the Kremlin to describe uprisings that were popular on former Soviet territories like Ukraine.
Apparently, considering how Ukraine’s former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych has triggered his own downfall by crimes against protesters against protesters, Mr. Vicchi has so far avoided slamming students, despite some isolated attacks on them by his supporters.
Asked about a massive protest on Saturday against Prime Minister Viktor Orban in neighboring Hungary, Mr. Vocici said the Hungarian and Serbian protests had “the same signature”, his insistence in recent weeks that the West is planning a turbulent campaign for Toppur leaders across the region.
Serbia protests spread across the country, entering a town that used to vote for Mr Vucic, which began in November after 15 people were killed after 15 people were killed after 15 people were killed after they were killed at a newly renovated railway station. Students and opposition politicians – who protested the flares and smoke bombs of parliament in dramatic ways last week – blamed the tragedy on the mean work of contractors tied to corrupt officials.
While the student focused on a series of clear requirements related to the disaster, including criminal prosecution of the person in charge and the revocation of the minister responsible for overseeing the renovation project, Mr Vucic's political opponents in parliament asked him to form a “transitional government” to oversee the new election.
Past elections held under the supervision of the Serbian Progressive Party were subject to voter fraud and government control over major television and news media, which made it mostly silent about news about opposition candidates. Mr Vucic said he was willing to hold elections but ruled out a “transitional government” including opponents.
As the protests drive, attracting support far beyond the campuses that have been locked down for months, they are increasingly targeting Mr. Vucic, who has been in power for 13 years, with many demonstrators now calling for him to remove him or even imprisonment.
Protesters yelled Saturday: “Arson Vucic.” “He's done.” Some of them carried signs.
President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner's political crisis in Serbia has been working for a Trump-brand brand luxury hotel in the heart of the capital, bringing trouble to the new U.S. government.
In President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
There is no sign of a tilt from Mr. Vucic. On Tuesday, Mr. Vucic met with the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., the president of Serbia, instigated by President Trump to demolish aid agency of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which helped finance election fraud and other abuse groups in Serbia, and sent armed police to raid him last month in the office of the non-governmental organization Belgrade Nongovernmental, who had been accused of stoke stoking discottent.
