Scuffles broke out at a student blockade at the University of Novi Sad in northern Serbia on Tuesday after a senior academic called in the police – the latest flashpoint in the ongoing anti-government protests in Serbia.
The dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Milivoj Alanovic, asked the police to enter the university to break up a blockade by student protesters which has so far lasted nine months. According to Serbian law, police can only enter a faculty if they are called by the dean.
The dean’s move came as tensions continue to run high after nine months of student-led protests that have rocked the Serbian government, initially sparked by the November 2024 Novi Sad train station disaster, which protesters blamed on official corruption and negligence.
Early on Tuesday morning, philosophy students participating in the blockade posted on X that dean Alanovoc had entered the faculty and said he wanted to expel them.
“The dean just stormed into the faculty with a few professors, changed the lock, and is threatening disciplinary action against the students. He wants to kick us out. We need help,” the students’ post said. A few hours later, they called on the public to come and support them.
“The intrusion of the administration into the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad and the expulsion of students, accompanied by threats of exemplary disciplinary measures, represents an attack on freedom of thought and the right to protest. The faculty belongs to students and must remain students’ because only then can it be free,” they wrote.
Dean Alanovic called the police on Tuesday evening. When they came, they were greeted by a group of students and other protesters blocking the entrance to the faculty, and there was pushing and shoving between protestors and police.
During the night, the situation calmed down, but the police remained in front of the faculty overnight until Wednesday morning. A new protest has been called for Wednesday.
Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said that Alanovic had called police and told them that “a large number of people entered the faculty premises violently from the back and that he and a group of professors were blocked at the entrance”.
“And tonight another attack occurred on the police who were carrying out their official duty… The gathered demonstrators, the ‘blockers’, tried to prevent the arrival of the Intervention Police Unit, and not only did they verbally protest, but they also physically pushed, struck and attacked members of the Intervention Police Unit in order to stop them from reaching the entrance to the faculty,” Dacic said.
Alanovic told a local news service that he entered the faculty on Monday morning in order to “prepare faculty premises for the upcoming exam period that begins on September 1”.
“On that occasion, we found several students in the building, who of course cannot stay there outside the faculty’s working hours, that is, after 10pm until 7am.” he said, adding that he spoke with the students and explained the reasons why they needed to leave the building.
Alanovic was not among the academics which has supported the student blockades from the start. He tried to stop them from occupying the building in December 2024, as N1 reported.
It is rare that police enter faculties under blockade. However, in April this year, the dean of the Novi Sad Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, Patrik Drid, called the police to secure his entry into the faculty, which had been blocked by students. The same month, police were accused of “intimidation” after they entered the Faculty of Medicine in the southern city of Nis, checking student IDs and issuing summonses.
On July 29, men dressed in black and bearing no identifiable markings broke up a sit-in protest at the State University of Novi Pazar, an ethnically-mixed city in southwestern Serbia, forcibly evicting students who had occupied the premises since January. Later, police also entered the premises, barring the students from returning.
Students have been occupying faculty buildings in Serbia since the end of November 2024. The first was the Belgrade University Faculty of Dramatic Arts, where students started a blockade after an attack on them in November during a silent vigil in honour of the victims of the Novi Sad train station roof collapse. After that, students at other faculties an universities started to launch their own blockades.
Katarina Baletic
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