(Belgrade) Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Belgrade on Saturday to express their opposition to violence, for the fifth time after the two shootings which left 18 dead at the beginning of the month, half of them children.
Gathered under the slogan “Serbia against violence”, demonstrators have taken to the streets of the Serbian capital in droves every week since the killings in early May in the Balkan country less than 48 hours apart.
“I am here for all of us, especially my children. So that they don’t need to demonstrate, but can live and work in their country, as they should be,” protester Bojana Popovic, a 33-year-old mathematician, told AFP.
On May 3, a 13-year-old boy killed nine classmates and a guard at a school in Belgrade. Less than 48 hours later, a young man murdered eight people in two villages near the capital.
People first demonstrated as a sign of mourning, but the protest turned into a vast movement of anger against the power of President Aleksandar Vucic.
The demonstrators demand the revocation of the licenses of television stations close to the government which publish violent content and accuse the government of having created or tolerated a “climate of violence” in Serbia.
They are also demanding the resignations of the Minister of the Interior and the head of the intelligence services.