{"id":434002,"date":"2025-08-18T17:08:53","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T15:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/08\/18\/le-proteste-in-serbia-stanno-diventando-violente\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T17:43:42","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T15:43:42","slug":"protests-in-serbia-are-turning-violent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/08\/18\/protests-in-serbia-are-turning-violent\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests in Serbia are turning violent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The mesh of repression in Serbia<\/strong> is being tightened. The pro-Russian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107<\/strong> intends to use an iron fist against the demonstrators who have been protesting<\/strong> on the streets of the Balkan country’s main cities for five days. The escalation of violence<\/strong> could mark a turning point in the anti-government protest, but for now, the EU has nothing to say<\/strong> about it. <\/p>\n

“Arrest Vu\u010di\u0107<\/strong>” was one of the many signs that appeared on placards dotting the plazas of half of Serbia<\/strong> over the weekend, in what observers describe as a recurrence of the clash between protesters and the government<\/strong>, which has been going on continuously since last autumn. <\/p>\n

Over the past five days, the protests have turned violent<\/strong> across the country, especially in Belgrade, with heated clashes between some pro-government factions and protesters, some of whom set fire to the offices of the SNS<\/strong>, the party of President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107,<\/strong> in power since 2012, and their coalition allies. The security forces were accused of excessive use of force<\/strong> to quell the riots.<\/p>\n

\"Aleksandar<\/a>
(credits: Angela Weiss \/ AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

But the head of state has no intention of relinquishing his grip on power and, indeed, is promising another crackdown<\/strong> on dissent. “If we don’t put in place tougher measures, it is only a matter of days before they<\/strong> (the protesters, ed<\/em>) kill someone<\/strong>,” he declared yesterday (17 August), branding the protests as “pure terrorism<\/strong>” orchestrated by phantom outside forces who allegedly hatched a plot to unseat him<\/strong>. “You will witness the determination of the Serbian state<\/strong>,” the authoritarian leader threatened, warning that “we will use all means at our disposal<\/strong> to restore peace and order in the country.”<\/p>\n

The past few days have been the most serious escalation of the oceanic protests,<\/strong> considered the largest ones<\/a>, since the implosion of Yugoslavia, and remaining largely peaceful until now, against the rampant corruption that erupted when the collapse of a bus shelter in Novi Sad<\/strong> last November killed fifteen people.<\/span> Led mainly by students, the popular movement has never stopped contesting the leadership of Vu\u010di\u0107<\/strong>, who responded with repression<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Repression that, so far, hasn’t seemed to bother those in charge in Brussels. In recent months, both the President of the European Council, Ant\u00f3nio Costa<\/strong>, and the High Representative Kaja Kallas<\/strong> have visited Belgrade to reiterate the EU’s commitment to Serbia’s accession, turning a blind eye<\/a><\/strong> to the grave human rights violations,<\/strong> as well as Vu\u010di\u0107’s embarrassing closeness to Russian President Vladimir Putin<\/strong>.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tensions continue to rise in the Balkan country, where pro-Russian President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107 is implementing a harsh crackdown on dissent. Over the weekend, new clashes between protesters and pro-government factions, amid abuse by the security apparatus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":433991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26065,25836,30632,31903,26071],"class_list":["post-434002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-alexandar-vucic-en","tag-eu-enlargement-en","tag-protest-serbia-en","tag-repressione-en","tag-inserbia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434002"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":434009,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434002\/revisions\/434009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}