Dozens of detainees after the collision of the Serbian riot police and anti -government demonstrators

Dozens of anti -government demonstrators were detained during clashes with the riot police in the capital of Serbia on Saturday during a major gathering against popular President Alexander Vochik calling for early parliamentary elections.

Tens of thousands of people protested after nearly eight months of the ongoing opposition led by university students in Serbia who rocked the company Vcic over power in the Balkan country.

The huge crowd chanted: “We want the elections!” When they filled the Central Slaviga Square in the capital and several blocs around it, with many who are able to reach the place.

The police were held in the hands, and an officer was wounded on the ground during the street battles in the center of Belgrade, which lasted for several hours. The police said that six police officers and an unknown number of citizens were injured.

“Serbia always wins,” Vocic said at the Instagram post.

Vocic, a former nationalist, has become increasingly authoritarian since his arrival to power more than a decade ago. Although he officially says he wants to join Serbia to the European Union, critics say Vocic suffocated democratic freedoms as it strengthens relations with Russia and China.

With the formal protest, the demonstrators threw white plastic, and other things in the riot police, who were preventing the crowd from approaching the city center park. Hundreds of loyalists in Fishek were giving in the park for several months to form a human shield in front of its headquarters in the capital.

Serbian Interior Minister Evica Dacic said that the participants in the protest attacked the police. He said that the police used their powers to restore public order and “arrest all those who attacked the police.”

The police later said dozens of “rioters” were arrested, but they did not provide the exact number.

Some of the demonstrators were wearing scarves and masks on their faces while they were clash with law enforcement, using garbage boxes as the protection against the police that they were practicing with Patton. The officers used pepper spray before the demonstrators pushed their adults.

Tensions were high before and during the gathering with the riot police deployed around government buildings.

“The elections are a clear way to get out of the social crisis resulting from the government’s actions, which are undoubtedly against the interests of its people,” said a student who did not give the name of the crowd from the stage. “Today, on June 28, 2025, we announce that the current authorities are illegal.”

University students play a major role

At the end of the official part of the assembly, students asked the crowd to “take freedom in your hands.”

University students were a major force behind the anti -corruption demonstrations in the country, which began after the collapse of the umbrella of a renovated railway station, killing 16 people on November 1.

Many blame the concrete ceiling collision on the outbreak of government corruption and neglect in the infrastructure projects of the states, which led to repeated mass protests.

“We are here today because we cannot take it anymore,” said student Darko Kovacific. “This has been continuing for a long time. We are drowned in corruption.”

The President and his right -wing Serbian party have repeatedly rejected the demand for early vote and accused the demonstrators of planning to stimulate violence on orders from abroad, which they did not specify or provide evidence of it.

VCIC authorities launched a campaign against amazing universities in Serbia and other opponents, while increasing pressure on independent media while trying to curb the demonstrations.

While the figures have shrunk in recent weeks, the huge offer of anti -material gathering indicated on Saturday that the determination continues, despite the uncompromising pressure and nearly eight months of daily protests.

The Serbian police, which is controlled by the VCIC government, said that 36,000 people attended at the beginning of the protest on Saturday. An independent surveillance group recorded the public gatherings that about 140,000 people attended the gathering.

Saturday was St. Vitos, a religious holiday, and the history in which the Serbs represented a battle in the fourteenth century against the Ottoman Turks in Kosovo, which was the beginning of hundreds of years of Turkish rule, with symbolic importance.

Some speakers in the student rally raised the subject, which was also used to feed the Serbian nationalism in the 1990s, which later led to the incitement of ethnic wars after the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.

Vocic supporters click on Belgrade

Hours before the student’s assembly, the Vocic party was transported in dozens of its supporters to Belgrade from other parts of the country, where many shirts wear reading: “We will not give up Serbia.” They were joining a Vocic loyal camp in the center of Belgrade, where they have been staying in tents since mid -March.

In a business show as usual, Vocic distributed presidential prizes in the capital to the people who considered it worthy, including artists and journalists. “There is no need to worry – the state will be defended and thugs will come to justice,” he told reporters on Saturday.

The Serbian presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled to be in 2027.

Earlier this week, the police arrested many persons accused of planning to overthrow the government and prohibited entry into the country, without explanation, for several people from Croatia and a theater director from the Black Montecine.

The railway company in Serbia has suspended the train service because of the alleged bomb threatening, while critics said it was a clear attempt to prevent people from traveling to Belgrade for the gathering.

The authorities took similar moves in March, before the biggest protest in the Balkans in the Balkan country, which attracted hundreds of thousands of people.