Opposition Party: Vucic Has Downtown Belgrade under Siege

(BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Ana Godjevac, the vice chairperson of the Belgrade Committee of the Freedom and Justice Party, on April 16 accused Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic of keeping Belgrade's Nikola Pasic Square "under siege," with white tents pitched in front of the parliament building.

Godjevac said in a press release that "Vucic has kept Nikola Pasic Square and the city center under siege for six days" because he "knows Belgrade wants nothing to do with him." She went on to say that he "first lined the streets with fences and mobile toilets for his partisan assembly," describing that rally as a failure. Godjevac said Vucic then "took over the area in front of the National Assembly with tents with heaters and propane tanks."

She said "Vucic's thugs stand guard" there and that these individuals had "physically assaulted citizens, students and MPs during blockades," but that even though there is evidence, prosecutors keep ignoring these attacks." "These hooligans are Vucic's last line of defense. They sit there, posing as spontaneous support, insult MPs chanting that they are Ustashi, and threaten anyone who comes up to them to ask what they are doing there," she said.

The press release also noted that Belgrade Mayor Aleksandar Sapic was the "contractor carrying out this job," and that he is "hiding somewhere" and running the operation of keeping the capital overrun through his closest associates.