Government Supporters Hold Rally Outside Parliament Building

Milos Vucevic, Belgrade, June 28 2025 (Photo: PrintScreen )

On June 28 the space in front of the entrance to the Serbian parliament was the scene of a gathering of government supporters previously announced as a "literary afternoon," which was also attended by numerous Cabinet ministers and the president of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, Milos Vucevic, who arrived from Novi Sad on a motorcycle.

After the end of a rally organized by protesting students in nearby Slavija Square, groups of demonstrators set off to the site of the so-called "literary afternoon." Police subsequently fully intervened there, using tear gas and pushing back demonstrators. The gathered demonstrators responded by throwing bottles, firecrackers and flares at the police, but cordons of the Gendarmerie also joined the intervention, sealing off the Presidency building.

Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said that the participants of the protest rally in Slavija Square had attacked police officers after the rally's end, while police director Dragan Vasiljevic said that "several dozen hooligans" had been arrested in the incidents, and that six police officers and two citizens were injured.

The Civic Initiatives NGO has said in a statement that the events "showed the police's disconcerting readiness to react to the gathered [people] who were exercizing their constitutional right with tear gas, pepper spray, physical force, by stopping ambulances and [making] arbitrary arrests. Violent behavior toward students, citizens and journalists is impermissible and must be sanctioned." The Civic Initiative pointed out that it was particularly worrying that police violence was focused on demonstrators in order to protect the counterrally that the authorities themselves scheduled outside the parliament at the same time as the student protest.