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Following the massive demonstration that gathered hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Belgrade on 15 March, the popular uprising shaking Serbia shows no sign of losing momentum. For nine days now, students have been blocking the entrance to the Serbian public broadcaster (RTS), accusing it of ignoring the movement and serving the authorities’ interests, resulting in disrupted programming.

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To lift the blockade of RTS, Serbian students are demanding the appointment of new leadership at the helm of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), whose role is theoretically to ensure pluralism of opinion and sanction incitement to hatred and violence.

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For Serbian civil society […] it is the authorities’ widespread corruption that is seen as having triggered the tragedy at the root of the mobilisations. On 1 November, the recently renovated roof of the railway station in the major city of Novi Sad collapsed, killing sixteen people. Protesters have since demanded full transparency regarding the accident amid allegations that endemic graft was partly to blame.

Rallies are being organised almost daily in Serbia’s major cities. Prime Minister Miloš Vučević was forced to resign in January after protesters were assaulted by activists from Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

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On 16 April, 80 Serbian students arrived in Strasbourg after cycling more than 1,400 kilometres from Belgrade. Passing through Budapest, Vienna, and Munich, they eventually handed over a letter describing the political situation in Serbia to Bjorn Berge, the deputy secretary general of the Council of Europe.