Activists Announce Six-Hour Blockade of Bridge in Novi Sad

Novi Sad (BETAPHOTO/Dragan Gojic)

Activist groups SviCe (Sun Is Rising/Everyone Will) and Students Against Authoritarian Rule have announced that in the evening on Nov. 8 they will block Varadin Bridge in Novi Sad for six hours over the authorities' failure to take responsibility for the death of 14 people in the collapse of the concrete canopy at the city train station.

The organizers of the protest, which will start at 6 p.m., are demanding the resignations of Prime Minister Milos Vucevic and Novi Sad Mayor Milan Djuric, the prosecution of all responsible individuals, and the removal of the designation of confidentiality from the contract on the train station's reconstruction.

Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said on Nov. 8 that the activists were planning on unloading sand from a truck at the entrance to Varadin Bridge and asked, "Is that normal?"

"They are going to leave that blockade and then what? Maybe that (the sand) should be left there and we'll see what the citizens will say," Dacic said regarding the announced protest. 

One of the biggest protest rallies in the history of Novi Sad took place in the city in the evening on Nov. 5, during which multiple incidents occurred and arrests were made. Activists and opposition parties have accused the authorities of organizing "phalanxes" which demolished City Hall and the police of arresting demonstrators instead of the rioting hooligans.