“[Today] it’s a source of pride to be Serbian,” says Zena as she marches toward the Novi Sad train station, north of Belgrade. With her, hundreds of thousands of people are walking in the same direction. They have set out from sixteen different points, one for each victim of the station canopy collapse. This Saturday marks one year since the collapse that killed these sixteen people. Deaths that the Serbian population, but especially students, attribute to corruption.

"The fact that what's happening here isn't reported in the US media, or in the European media, or anywhere else, doesn't that tell us something? It tells us that this president, no matter how bad he is, no matter how repressive he is with his people, has support from outside," says one witness. Point of no return, the magnificent documentary series by 3Cat about the transformations our world is undergoing, has released a new episode: Wake up, Serbia! The student revoltA deeply moving report. The story is so powerful that director, journalist, and documentary filmmaker Raül Gallego Abellán has allowed himself to be narratively guided by the story's protagonists. This episode, of the two seasons of the series, surely exudes the most added emotion. It's as if, this time, beyond addressing the viewers, it's constructing a report that seeks to contribute to the cause at hand. In fact, Serbian students sharing this report on social media are already receiving threats.

Serbia's nationalist president, Aleksandar Vučić, has announced that he will implement "surprising measures" against protesters who They have been protesting against their government for nine months.On Wednesday, August 13, the protests, which had been largely peaceful until then, turned violent, with clashes between demonstrators and security forces. Several offices of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), Vučić's party, were attacked and a fire was set on them.

When you walk past the Generalstab in Belgrade, you feel overwhelmed by the weight of memory. The former Serbian armed forces building retains its charred facade and bare structure just as it was after the city was bombed by US planes in 1999. Half through negligence, half through political intent, the former headquarters of the Yugoslav armed forces has remained intact ever since.

The center of Belgrade has been filled with barricades where students and opponents of the regime of Aleksandar Vučić, of the Serbian Progressive Party, have been sleeping since mass protests on SaturdayThe protesters, led by students, They consider the government illegitimate and are demanding that Vučić call early elections. Before Saturday's protests, which were particularly large, the students issued an ultimatum demanding that elections be called before 9 p.m. on Saturday, a demand the president rejected. Presidential elections are scheduled for 2027.

The deep crisis of political legitimacy exhibited by the Serbian government may soon begin to take its toll on the already weak influence of the European Union in the Western Balkans. What credibility can an EU accession process have when it seems to prioritize geopolitical stability over democratic principles?

On November 1, 2024, the canopy of the recently renovated Novi Sad train station collapsed, killing 15 people. The renovation work had been opaquely awarded to a consortium of Chinese companies. The tragic accident sparked a protest movement, first in Novi Sad and then throughout Serbia, denouncing widespread corruption, media censorship, the concentration of power, the influence of Russia and Chinese capital, and the repression of dissent. It's no joke: in December, a demonstration as large as those that precipitated Milosevic's downfall took place in Belgrade, and on Saturday, it was the largest in the country's history.

On November 1, 2024, the canopy of the recently renovated Novi Sad train station collapsed, killing 15 people. The renovation work had been opaquely awarded to a consortium of Chinese companies. The tragic accident sparked a protest movement, first in Novi Sad and then throughout Serbia, denouncing widespread corruption, media censorship, the concentration of power, the influence of Russia and Chinese capital, and the repression of dissent. It's no joke: in December, a demonstration as large as those that precipitated Milosevic's downfall took place in Belgrade, and on Saturday, it was the largest in the country's history.

Not even the Serbs who had attended the historic protest for the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 could remember a more multitudinous demonstration than the one that happened in Belgrade this Saturday. Between 500,000 and 700,000 people—according to the organization—took to the streets to protest against corruption, lack of transparency, and the negligent management of infrastructure by the government of pro-Russian Aleksandar Vucic.