“We have torn down the wall of fear

You have torn down the walls of our homes

We will rebuild our houses

But you will never rebuild that wall of fear.”

tweet@souriastrong (Rawia Alhoussaini)
“Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age” – Manuel Castells

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No one saw it coming. 

In a country numbed by corruption, inequality and apathy, where people had long lost faith in the possibility of change, it was students who finally broke the silence. 

It began with the sound of metal collapsing. 

On November 1, 2024, at 11:52 a.m., the newly reconstructed canopy of Novi Sad’s central railway station caved in. It was the city’s busiest station, crowded with young people on their way to university, others rushing to work, the rhythm of daily life pulsing through every train. Among those waiting for the train at noon, some never made it home, not to work, not anywhere else that day.

Fourteen people were killed instantly; a woman died two weeks later in hospital. Four months later, another victim, –– V.C., who had been fighting for his life since that morning –– died in hospital too, becoming the 16th victim of a tragedy that had shaken the country.

But for most people, it was more than that. The collapse became a symbol of everything that had been crumbling long before that roof; a state built on negligence and corruption, where institutions failed and accountability eroded.

In the days that followed, grief gave way to anger, igniting a wave of civic outrage and protest. 

Soon after, thousands of people across Serbia took to the streets, stopping traffic at exactly 11:52 a.m. for 15 minutes – the exact time the canopy of Novi Sad’s railway station had come crashing down. The protests sparkled with creativity, and one of the most popular slogans is “Pumpaj” (“Pump it up” or “Go all in”). It is used to encourage people to persist, keep pushing, fight harder against corruption and for accountability, and see demands met.

The ongoing protests are the largest Serbia has seen in recent decades. The biggest one took place on March 15, 2025, lasting the entire day in Belgrade. According to estimates by the Association Archive of Public Gatherings, between 275,000 and 325,000 people joined the protest. 

In the air that day, freedom was palpable. Although the number of protesters is not small and it’s sometimes hard to estimate the exact turnout, especially during day-long blockades, what stands out about these protests is the broad participation: people from all walks of life are taking part and contributing to the struggle in their own way. Croatian historian Hrvoje Klasić noted that, even when compared to the landmark 1968 student demonstrations — the first mass political protest in socialist Yugoslavia, when students in Belgrade rose up against inequality, unemployment and the privileges of the political elite — the current student movement in Serbia is both broader in scope and larger in scale.

I remember how meaningful it was to share that grief with others on the streets of Belgrade. I felt a little safer, a little less alone. During those 15 minutes, I thought of the lives lost, the injured, their families – and I watched the people around me. For 15 minutes, we all stood still together, as if becoming part of a city that grieved in silence alongside us. In that shared silence, there was a strange kind of strength, as if each of us, wordlessly, was bearing witness and resisting. 

After taking part in the first 15 minutes of silence, I remember feeling a strong urge to hug my friends. It was as if something in me reawakened – a sense of belonging, of togetherness, of the belief that we would keep fighting for justice. This act of civil disobedience and solidarity soon became known as “15 Minutes of Silence,” and later, “16 Minutes of Silence,” after V.C., who had been critically injured in the collapse, and died in hospital months later, raising the death toll to sixteen.

During one such action, called “Zastani, Srbijo” (Serbia, Stop), on November 22, 2024, a group of organized men physically attacked students and professors from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU) in Belgrade, who were silently paying tribute to the victims in front of the faculty. The attack became a turning point. FDU students barricaded their faculty and issued four demands that would soon form the core of the nationwide student movement Studenti u blokadi (Students in Blockade).

Their first demand called for the publication of all documentation related to the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station – information that had remained inaccessible to the public. Another one was a call for authorities to identify and prosecute those who had attacked students and professors, and to dismiss any perpetrators found to hold public office. They also demanded the withdrawal of all criminal charges against students arrested or detained during the protests, as well as the suspension of all ongoing legal proceedings against demonstrators. Finally, the movement called for a 20 percent increase in public funding for state universities, citing chronic underfunding and the erosion of higher education as part of the same systemic decay that had led to the tragedy.

Months later, following the protest of March 15, 2025, students added a new demand to their list. That day, during a silent vigil along Kralja Milana Street in Belgrade, an unidentified sonic disturbance rippled through the crowd, sparking fear and confusion, splitting the crowd in half. Its origin remains unclear, though witnesses described a strange sensory wave that many believed was deliberate.

Civil society organizations reported receiving complaints from around 3,000 citizens describing various health issues, injuries, and physical and psychological symptoms linked to the event. In response, students called for a formal investigation to determine what technology had been used, where it came from, and under whose authority it was deployed. On March 24, 2024, the European Court of Human Rights asked the Serbian government to respond to inquiries about the potential deployment of sonic weapons during the Belgrade protest held on March 15, 2025. The responses were due by March 31, 2024. Serbian authorities acknowledged the presence of a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) at the protest, contradicting their earlier denials. They, however, insist that the device was not employed as a “sound cannon” against demonstrators

On April 7, students broadened their demands by filing a criminal complaint against President Aleksander Vučić for visiting victims of the Kočani nightclub fire at Belgrade’s intensive care unit, where they had been airlifted to from North Macedonia to receive treatment. Accompanied by cameras, Vučić and the health minister entered the ward without protective gear, while journalists filmed the injured, a move students condemned as an invasion of privacy and a political performance staged in the wake of tragedy.

None of the students’ demands were met. But, back in November 2024, once the FDU went into blockade, other faculties began to join in. Out of that defiance and solidarity, the movement Students in Blockade was born, grounded in the principles of direct democracy. Meaning, students self-organize through plenums, open assemblies held at each faculty, where everyone has an equal right to speak, propose ideas and vote on decisions. They have also established working groups within each faculty, for safety, media, logistics, etc., which handle the day-to-day operations of the movement and implement decisions made in plenums.

The momentum was immediate. As news of the blockade spread, other faculties began organizing their own.

“I remember that feeling — that urgency that we had to call for a blockade right away, and that it would be absurd if the Faculty of Political Sciences (FPN) wasn’t among the first to join,” recalls Emilija Milenković, a student at the FPN. 

She adds that at first, she was afraid they wouldn’t be able to sustain the blockade, that there wouldn’t be enough people, that everything would fall apart: “And that’s exactly how it was at the beginning, until things started to take shape, until we organized working groups and plenums,” Milenković said.

She says that solidarity with other faculties — especially with the FDU — was crucial for the movement to spread across universities throughout Serbia.

“I watched as one faculty after another joined the blockade, and I couldn’t believe it, because everything was happening so spontaneously, so fast,” she said.

Solidarity brought back hope — hope that we could change the society we live in, and that we were not alone in that struggle. Farmers used their tractors to protect student blockades, cooked goulash and brought it to students on campuses. Lawyers went on strike. Doctors stepped out of their shifts to join protesters for their 16-minute silence. High school students organized their own plenums and blockades in schools and local communities. Teachers, professors and lecturers stood behind their students and pupils. Unity, enthusiasm and hope returned to the streets, the universities, the schools, to public life. At first, people whispered and then they began to say it out loud: change is possible, we deserve better and together we will build a better country for us all.

From late 2024 into 2025, the rhythm of the movement pulsed through the streets – sometimes fading into quiet acts of resistance, sometimes erupting into mass demonstrations, but it never disappeared, and is still ongoing.

Beyond the blockades, with every step they took, students have freed citizens of fear – fear that had settled deep over the years of semi-authoritarian rule and the slow erosion of democratic institutions. It was the fear of speaking out against a government whose influence reaches into nearly every small town, where public sector jobs are often tied to loyalty to Vucic’s ruling SNS party, or fear of joining protests that are routinely met with smear campaigns and intimidation.

Throughout 2025, students marched to Novi Sad, Belgrade, Niš, Kragujevac, Novi Pazar, Kraljevo and other cities across Serbia; high school students organized similar actions in their own local communities. In a country where the national media is under government control, our bodies have become carriers of messages — symbols of resistance. As tertiary and high school students walked through forgotten villages and small towns, they talked with locals and spread the message of protest: only together can we fight for justice and a rule-of-law state.

I cried almost every day watching scenes of solidarity and togetherness — elderly people offering juice and cakes, maybe all they had, to students passing through their village; and then those same students returning to thank them in person. Students from Niš, who during Ramadan prepared iftar and separate spaces for prayer (for men and women) for their colleagues from Novi Pazar. 

The gesture carried particular weight given how Novi Pazar, a city in southern Serbia with a predominantly Muslim population, is often overlooked in national conversations and by public officials. In a country saturated with nationalist rhetoric, where war criminals are glorified and hate speech surrounds us, students stood side by side — some making the sign of the cross, some reciting Al-Fatiha, some standing silently in remembrance. For the students from Novi Pazar, that moment meant more than solidarity; it was a rare glimpse of belonging and acceptance that made them feel seen, respected and finally recognized as part of the country.

Elsewhere in the northern parts of Serbia, stickers reading “Krvave su vam ruke” / “Véresek a kezeitek” (You have blood on your hands) — in both Serbian and Hungarian, were distributed among students. The Roma flag waved at protests. Fear and alienation were overcome through solidarity.

When a state’s authority is challenged and the government refuses to respond to the movement’s demands, it turns to its last instrument — its monopoly on violence. During the summer of 2025, we witnessed police brutality on the streets of Belgrade and other cities across Serbia. Evidence collected by human-rights organizations confirms a pattern of excessive force: riot police using batons and shields against peaceful students, arrests of dozens of protestors and documented cases of injuries requiring hospitalization. Women at protests, besides facing physical violence, were also subjected to specific forms of sexualized intimidation — showing how repression always particularly deepens existing gender inequalities in society.

Nikolina Sinđelić, a student at the FPN, reported experiencing police brutality and threats of rape, allegedly from Marko Kričak, commander of the Special Unit for the Protection of Certain Facilities and Persons (JZO). She, along with several others, was detained on August 14, 2025, during protests in Belgrade and taken to a government building garage, where, according to her testimony, they were subjected to intimidation and physical abuse aimed at discouraging students from further participation in the protests.

“When he was hitting one of my colleagues, he said, ‘I don’t want to see you on the streets again.’ It was clear they wanted to scare as many students as possible, to shrink our numbers, to suffocate the movement,” Sinđelić told the media.

Feminist activist and founder of the feminist platform “Kritički,” Nikolina Pavićević, explains that rape threats are meant to demonstrate “who holds control,” to discourage women from taking part in public life and to remind them that their safety depends on the will of those in power.

“That’s why, when women protest, they protest twice. They’re not only rising up against corrupt power structures, but also against misogynistic humiliation, which over the past year, has been most clearly reflected in the actions of the police,” Pavićević said.

When I heard what had happened to Nikolina, I was furious, and that anger turned into the need to act and organize. I had been at every protest in Belgrade since the first one, but this time felt different — especially as a woman. What happened to Nikolina showed how even when we protest corruption, women’s bodies still become targets of power.

That’s why, on August 19, I joined the protest “We Are All Nikolina” alongside my friends. We demanded the dismissal of JZO commander Kričak and the sanctioning of police officers involved in the abuse of detained protesters.

Students Nikolina Sinđelić and Dušan Cvetković filed a criminal complaint against Kričak and other members of the JZO for police brutality and abuse. This step is both important and courageous, as it allows them to take control and confront systemic violence within state institutions.

Besides state repression, however, within the protests it has not always been safe for all of us, nor has the movement been immune to homophobia, nationalism and nationalist rhetoric. In Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Niš, and Belgrade, I marched alongside people waving nationalist flags and shouting hateful, offensive slogans. In those moments, I wondered whether I should remain on the street, whether our struggle had the same goal and whether I would be safe being there with a queer badge. Yet, I knew I was not alone in this feeling and that I had to engage and participate in the ongoing social dialogue if I wanted to live in a better Serbia.

Matea Stefanović from the organization Talas TIRV, which focuses on trans, intersex, and gender-variant people, explains that the queer and trans community has participated in protests and blockades from the very beginning, but their sense of safety is often shaken.

“For safety reasons, many queer people choose not to wear any symbols — flags, badges or anything that would visually indicate their queer identity — because they know it could expose them to attacks or insults. The very fact that people have to choose between safety and visibility speaks volumes about the situation queer people face in our country, even within the protest itself, where they are often not recognized as equal comrades,” Stefanović said.

He also added that when homophobic or transphobic chants arise during protests, “it further amplifies the feeling of insecurity, humiliation and alienation, even at events that are supposed to be spaces of solidarity and unity.” 

Stefanović says that despite the risks, it is important for the queer community to be visible at protests.

“It is clear that the struggle for social change cannot be complete if it does not include those who are systematically oppressed and discriminated against. For queer and trans people themselves, participating in protests is an act of empowerment and solidarity, because it shows they are not alone and are part of a broader movement for social justice,” he said.

One form of queer political organizing that emerged from the protests was the creation of the grassroots initiative Belgrade Queer Assembly (Kvir zbor Beograda). Modeled on direct democracy, the Assembly brings people together to debate and coordinate collective action — much like plenums do for students. What makes it distinctive is its effort to connect queer people across municipalities and highlight that their struggles are inseparable from the broader fight against social injustice and political repression.

Beyond the queer community, Albanians, too, became targets of hostility. Nationalist chants at protests — including slurs and shouts telling the police to “Go to Kosovo!” — expose how deeply normalized ethnic hatred remains. These weren’t isolated incidents but echoes of a long history of state-sanctioned violence and propaganda that taught generations to see Albanians as enemies — lives against whom force could be used without consequence. It reveals the logic of a system that has taught us for decades that violence against Albanians in Kosovo is normal, that repression is permissible, until that violence came home, before our own eyes and bodies.

Only when batons and clubs started striking us did it become clear that violence never stays “over there” — it always finds its way back. And that realization shattered the illusion that we could live in peace as long as our society justifies and perpetuates violence against the “Other.”

Human rights activist Fiona Jelići says she sometimes hesitated to attend protests, “not out of fear of fellow citizens, but out of fear of the police.” “I reminded myself that in those chants, I am not the target, even if my body may feel like it is; but when it comes to the police, we are all the target, because the baton does not discriminate anymore,” she said.

Jelići had mixed emotions the first time she heard hate speech targeting Albanians at protests — fear, feeling complicit in the very problem the protests oppose, feeling out of place, but also anger at what was being shouted.

“To continue attending protests, I felt obliged to at least post on my social media about it, to remind fellow citizens that Albanians are among us, that we have been together at protests since the ‘1 of 5 Million’ protests, that we are in the same struggle, and that there are other ways to express dissatisfaction,” Jelići said.

Nationalist slogans targeting the Albanian community at protests were also met with responses from grassroots citizen initiatives, such as zbor/assemblies, in Cerak, Stari Grad and Novi Pazar. They responded through their Instagram, explaining why slogans targeting Albanians and the queer community should not be used, and wrote that these kinds of slogans more closely resemble the propaganda of the 1990s that led to wars and war crimes. Among other things, the post reads:

“We therefore appeal to the protestors not to use slogans from the repertoire that this government itself employs in its crackdown on both political opponents and other peoples and neighbors. We appeal to protestors not to associate the president with Albanians, or with any other minority group living in Serbia, whose members are equal citizens of this country… Hate speech must not define the better future for which we are all fighting together in these protests”.

The assemblies’ reactions, as grassroots civic initiatives, are important because they show that political maturity is developing within the movement; that solidarity cannot be selective, and the fight against corruption and injustice cannot endure if it simultaneously tolerates exclusion and hatred toward any community. The assemblies’ response sent a message that the Albanian community is part of the same struggle and that clearly rejects nationalism, a weapon this government has used for years.

All of this illustrates the multiple layers of the movement and its participants. Different social groups were brought together by the fight for justice, the fight against corruption, the fight for a better and more equitable society, and the overthrow of the regime. Perhaps the greatest change this movement produced took place in people’s minds. People freed themselves from fear, connected with others, began questioning and dismantling their prejudices and stereotypes, and younger generations felt the power of collective organizing. Those socialized and shaped during these protests became more sensitive to injustice, more open to dialogue and more ready to rebel.

It takes time for the effects of the student movement to be truly felt in institutions, but the mental transformation has begun. People’s views are changed through interaction with their environment and communities, which is why visibility of diverse social groups at protests is crucial. The movement has fostered a process of “relearning how to live together” and how to engage with the “Other,” which is no easy task.

Almost a year later, hope still remains. Many have invested their time and energy in the movement — parents who publicly supported their children have been dismissed or fired from their work, while teachers and educators have not had their contracts renewed or have been dismissed outright. One form of solidarity, that reflects the movement’s layered nature, was a charity drag queen show “Kraljice za prosvetare” (Queens for Educators), where drag queens raised 280,000 dinars (about €2,389) for educational workers.

Despite pressure and repression, resistance continues. On October 13, 2025, students from the Fifth Belgrade Gymnasium began a (new) physical blockade of their school. They demand the dismissal of their acting principal, reinstatement of dismissed or suspended teachers, the formation of a School Board and the selection of a new principal from the school collective. In support, students from Belgrade’s Sveti Sava Gymnasium joined the blockade, blocking their school until the demands were met.

I cannot ignore that the student movement succeeded in mobilizing different social groups fighting against the regime. Problems arise when these groups do not uphold and support democratic values but use the protests to advance their ethno-nationalist agenda. Analysis by the Belgrade Center for Security Policy (BCBP) shows that digital channels such as the Telegram group BUNT je stanje duha (REBELLION is a state of mind) act as powerful tools in this process, spreading emotionally charged, dehumanizing and polarizing content that undermines democratic values and the legitimacy of student activism. Through these networks, radical narratives are reproduced and reinforced, creating the risk that student protests may be instrumentalized to spread nationalist and anti-democratic values.

Nevertheless, I choose to be hopeful. Over the past year, I have met a huge number of young, intelligent and dedicated people who want to build Serbia as a just and inclusive country that is good for all its citizens. The knowledge and experience gained during these protests must yield something positive. This is a rhizomatic revolution, slowly but profoundly changing people’s consciousness and attitudes, as such, these shifts will reflect in the actions, habits and engagements that it will require to build an open, inclusive, multiethnic, democratic society.

Feature image: TheCynicalPhotographer / Creative Commons