BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Clashes erupted between groups of protesters and riot police after a huge anti-government rally on Saturday in the Serbian capital of Belgrade by tens of thousands of opponents of the country’s autocratic President Aleksandar Vucic.
While the rally at a central square in Belgrade passed peacefully, groups of young assailants later clashed with riot police, throwing flares, rocks and bottles at police cordons. Police responded with pepper spray as they charged forward to disperse them.
The groups, including apparent soccer hooligans, rolled trash cans into the streets as shield-carrying riot police tried to surround them. Police parked anti-riot vehicles in a central Belgrade area to block the demonstrators from returning and the violence soon ended. Police said 23 people were detained.
Protests have shaken Vucic
Crowds of protesters earlier on Saturday streamed into central Belgrade, many carrying banners and wearing T-shirts inscribed with the “Students win” motto of the youth movement which organized the gathering. Columns of cars drove into Belgrade from other Serbian towns earlier in the day.
Vucic has sought to curb the mass demonstrations that have shaken his hard-line rule in the Balkan country. Big crowds on Saturday suggested the dissent persists more than a year after protests first started to demand accountability for a train station tragedy in Serbia’s north in November 2024 that killed 16 people.
Serbia’s state railway company on Saturday canceled all trains to and from Belgrade, in an apparent bid to stop at least some people from coming from other parts of the country.
The president said in a video on Instagram on Saturday that protesters “have shown their violent nature and that they cannot stand political opponents.” Vucic, who was on his way to China for a state visit, added that “the state is functioning and will continue to work in line with the law.”
Anti-corruption protests forced then-Prime Minister Milos Vucevic to resign in January 2025 before authorities pushed back hard against the protesters. Many people in Serbia blamed the concrete canopy crash at the station on alleged graft-fueled negligence during the renovation work on the building carried out with Chinese companies.
The students on Saturday demanded an early election and the rule of law, accusing the government of crime and corruption.
Prosecutor Bojana Savovic told the crowd that “a state where laws are not implemented or are implemented selectively is no longer a state, it becomes a mafia organization.”
Parliament speaker Ana Brnabic downplayed the student rally, saying “it offered nothing new.” Police estimated that 34,300 people came to the rally, while organizers said it was many more, without giving a specific figure.
Vucic’s supporters gathered at park camp
Clashes first erupted in the vicinity of a park camp of Vucic’s loyalists outside the Serbian presidency building that he set up ahead of another big anti-government rally last March as a human shield against protesters. Folk music blared from a fenced area surrounded by rows of riot police in full gear.
The Serbian president has faced international scrutiny for his hard-line tactics against the demonstrators in the past year, including arbitrary arrests and use of excessive force. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, criticized Serbia’s government in a report this week and said he “will monitor the situation closely” on Saturday.
O’Flaherty also cited “reports of police protecting unidentified and often masked attackers of journalists and protesters.” He said the overall rights situation has deteriorated since his previous visit in April 2025.
Serbia is formally seeking European Union entry but it has nourished close ties with Russia and China. The democratic backsliding under Vucic could cost the country around 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in European Union funding, the EU’s top enlargement official warned last month.
The venue on Saturday was Belgrade’s Slavija Square, the scene of a huge anti-government protest in March 2025. That rally ended in sudden disruption that experts later said — and the government denied — involved the use of a sonic weapon against peaceful demonstrators.
Students prepare for elections
The youth movement’s quest for justice and rule of law has resonated widely among Serbia’s citizens, who are disillusioned with established politicians after decades of perpetual crisis.
Students now say they plan to challenge Vucic at the approaching elections that they hope will oust the right-wing populist government. Vucic said this week that the ballot could be held between September and November this year.
Vucic, government officials and the pro-government media have branded critics as foreign agents who wish to destroy the country — rhetoric that has ramped up political polarization.
Protester Maja Milas Markovic said students “managed to gather us here with their youth and wonderful energy; I really believe that we have right to live normally.”
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Associated Press writer Dusan Stojanovic in Belgrade, Serbia, contributed to this report.