Police (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)
On Sept. 2 opposition parties condemned an attack by police on citizens and students in Novi Sad during a peaceful march on the ninth anniversary of the deadly collapse of a canopy at the railway station in the city.
The Democratic Party’s Novi Sad chapter said late on Sept. 1 that “there was a brutal and entirely unprovoked” attack by police who used batons, shock bombs and pepper spray against protesters a number of whom suffered various injuries showing that “Vucic and his party only have naked force left to use.”
The Novi Sad chapter of the Movement of Free Citizens called for the resignation of the interior minister and the chief of Novi Sad police, saying that police “have trampled on the autonomy of the university and clearly sided with the regime which has no qualms about using even the most brutal force to stay in power.”
President of the Novi Sad chapter of the Freedom and Justice Party Vladimir Vrsajkov said that police’s reaction was a message to all citizens of Novi Sad “that this kind of abuse of police at the hands of the Progressives shows that they are not interested in anything except staying in power no matter what the cost.”
A police statement said that police officers “were brutally insulted and sworn at” and that protesters threw large firecrackers, smoke bombs, bricks and stones at police injuring one officer during crowd suppression and dispersal.
Video footage of the event on social media as well reports by journalists and the accounts of eye-witnesses show that the exact opposite happened and that police hurled shock bombs at the protesters and then in extremely large numbers chased them down sidestreets, beating citizens and students.
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