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Student Protests in Serbia: Silence that Shook the Region

27 February 2025 by
Student Protests in Serbia: Silence that Shook the Region
Office LYMEC
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Every Friday from 11:52 to 12:07, silence is the only thing that you will hear in cities, towns, and villages across Serbia. What started as a student-led blockade of Belgrade’s Faculty of Dramatic Arts on 26 November 2024 has now swept the country. Since 8th February, demonstrations have been held in 163 out of 168 municipalities in Serbia. During its 13 years in power, the ruling Serbian Progressive Party has moved the country closer to authoritarianism with political scientists classifying the country as both a competitive authoritarian and a hybrid regime. However, the regime that holds all of the reins of power in Serbia, including the position of the President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the National Assembly, and President of the Government of Vojvodina (the autonomous province in the north of the country), has now started to crumble. Prime Minister Miloš Vučević resigned in January, following two of the prominent ministers from his government who resigned in November. While the most influential members of the Serbian Progressive Party are resigning and hiding from the press, the President of Serbia, and the person who de facto holds all of the political power in the country, Aleksandar Vučić, has continued with his daily presidential addresses, press conferences and town halls across the country. How did the government of the country that researchers called “a textbook example of stabilitocracy” become so unstable in such a short time?

On 1 November 2024, the canopy at the railway station in Novi Sad, the second biggest city in Serbia, suddenly collapsed leaving fifteen dead, including three children. The railway station, built in 1964, underwent extensive renovation and was officially re-opened in July 2024. However, despite being open to the public for four months, the building didn’t have an occupancy permit. Even though multiple officials were trying to point out that the canopy was not part of the reconstruction and that it wasn’t renovated, the facts refuted their statements; at the moment of collapse, the expert witnesses determined that the canopy was 23 tons heavier than envisioned in the original project of the railway station. As time passed, the response of the Government was becoming more and more contradictory, leading people to believe that the officials weren’t telling the complete truth. This prompted a wave of public protests and displays of commemoration across the country. Every Friday since 22 November the citizens blocked the streets and paid respect to the victims with a 15-minute silence starting at 11:52, the time that the canopy collapsed. 

At one of the commemorations, students of Belgrade’s Faculty of Dramatic Arts were attacked, which prompted student protestors from this faculty to block the entrance to the faculty building and stop all of the activities. This was followed by students at other universities, faculties, and even some high schools, elementary schools, and kindergartens. By 25 December, 85 state-owned faculties had been blocked, constituting around 75% of the state-owned faculties including all 28 out of 31 faculties based in Belgrade and all faculties located in Novi Sad, Niš, and Kragujevac, the four biggest cities in the country. According to the data from 26 December, 73 out of 521 high schools have also been blocked, which  constitutes the biggest protest of this type in the history of Serbia. 

The students have begun organizing public plenary sessions where members of the protests can voice their opinions and participate in the decision-making process. They have made four requests, directed to different institutions, and have vowed to continue the blockades until these four requests are fulfilled. These requests are:

  1. Publishing all of the documentation concerning the collapse of the canopy at Novi Sad Railway Station and indicting those who are responsible for the collapse;
  2. Identifying and punishing people responsible for the attacks on students and citizens who were demonstrating;
  3. Dropping charges against people arrested at the protests;
  4. Greater budget allocations for education.

It is important to point out that these are not the first major student protests in Serbia. In 1968, Belgrade student protests were the first major sign of discontent in the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. These protests were so widespread and massive that even Josip Broz Tito, the communist leader of Yugoslavia, admitted that there were mistakes in how the students were treated. Protests escalated the political crisis in the country which later resulted in the suppression of the Croatian Spring movement, demonstrations in Kosovo, and the purging of those perceived to be liberals from the Serbian party structure. 28 years later in 1996, the students rose again. After the local elections of 1996 were filled with irregularities, voter fraud, and threats from the Serbian regime led by President Slobodan Milošević, students stopped going to classes and started protesting every day at noon. In the end, after three months of protesting, the regime finally gave in and recognized that their candidates lost the local elections in Belgrade and other major cities. Three years later, Milošević’s regime fell after the October 2000 protests.

The history of Serbia shows the power of students in forcing political change and in 2025, almost 30 years since the last major student protests in Serbia, the students have risen again. But this time, they are emboldening other segments of the population to stand up to corruption and injustice. The university professors were the first to give support to students, followed by high school students and their professors and multiple other unions. One of the most notable examples is that of  the Lawyers’ Chamber of Serbia, whose members suspended their work for one month, until 4 March. These protests have also inspired students in other countries in the Balkan region to start their movements,  either to show support for the students in Serbia or to protest issues in their own countries.

The key question remains as to whether the student protesters will succeed in their demands. As the old saying goes; “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future”. Nevertheless, the student protests have managed to unite Serbia in a way that no other cause has managed in the 25 years since the fall of Milošević’s regime. In addition, they have also served as a beacon of hope to others in the Balkan region that peaceful protests are still a viable and much-needed part of citizen activism. No matter how they end, these protests will be remembered as the biggest show of citizen activism in the Balkans in this century. Even though the primary goal of the protests is to identify all of those responsible for the fall of the canopy at the Novi Sad railway station, these protests could be “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and bring the current regime in Serbia to its end. However, one thing is certain; until the government fulfills the student’s conditions, the streets of Serbia will continue to be filled with students. And silence.


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Student Protests in Serbia: Silence that Shook the Region
Office LYMEC 27 February 2025
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