For months now, Serbs have been protesting against their president, Aleksandar Vucic. On Saturday, the situation deteriorated sharply: demonstrators stormed the state radio station and surrounded the presidential palace.
“We just want to help public broadcaster to put its own motto into effect: Your right to know everything,” Boško Obradović yelled into the megaphone. The president of the right-wing national Serbian party “Dveri” was making an appearance in a rather unusual setting: the heart of the RTS building, the national radio station.
On Saturday, along with other opposition politicians and around fifty protesters, Obradović had forced his way into the building in the center of Belgrade, while hundreds more demonstrated outside. The riot police only managed to eject them some hours later. Isolated beatings of demonstrators were caught on camera, but the situation didn’t escalate any further.
As Vucic was giving a press conference on Sunday, thousands of people surrounded the presidential palace, protesting noisily against him with music, whistling, and shouting. The demonstrators broke through police lines to bring the truck with the loudspeakers up alongside the building. There were violent clashes.