Protest Anniversary Brings Four Rallies in Seven Days

The anniversary of last August’s protests brings four separate rallies in seven days this week. Gatherings are set for Vrbas, Novi Sad, Valjevo and Backa Palanka, the same towns where dozens of people were hurt last summer within a span of five days.

The calls came from informal student initiatives and citizens’ assemblies, each group acting in its own town, with no shared organizer and no single unified message. The question running through every announcement is one of accountability. Criminal complaints filed in Valjevo have sat unresolved for a year, and at the end of May this year the case moved from the local basic prosecutor’s office to the Organized Crime Prosecutor’s Office, after the earlier handling was judged inefficient.

The week’s schedule looks like this:

• Vrbas, Wednesday August 12 at 8 p.m., at the same spot where the clash broke out last year
• Novi Sad, Thursday August 13, a commemoration organized by citizens’ assemblies
• Valjevo, Friday August 14 at 7 p.m., a rally titled “Valjevo Remembers”
• Backa Palanka, Sunday August 16, the “Serbia or Mafia?” protest

Vrbas: 70 injured and police who arrived two hours later

The protest in Vrbas began in the evening of August 12, 2025. Residents at the time cited the organized busing in of Serbian Progressive Party activists from other towns as the trigger. Around 9:30 p.m., fireworks began flying toward the opposing group, followed by stones and frozen bottles.

Police largely failed to intervene in the early part of the night. The intervention unit and gendarmerie arrived more than two hours later, and only then was the gathering broken up. At least 70 people were injured. The Interior Ministry said at the time that citizens had attacked and thrown objects at Serbian Progressive Party supporters.

An informal initiative of Vrbas students has called for a gathering a year later, at the same time and in the same place. “Same place, same time, a year later. We haven’t forgiven you,” the Vrbas students said. Students from the University of Novi Sad’s Faculty of Law have also announced they will come to Vrbas, and a group of young people from Savino Selo said they would form a car convoy. We previously reported on the announced continuation of the “Serbia or Mafia?” campaign in that town.

Novi Sad: a convoy from Studentski Grad and shots fired into the air

A day later, on August 13, 2025, thousands of citizens and students marched from the Studentski Grad student settlement toward the Serbian Progressive Party offices on Strazilovska Street. The confrontation erupted outside the offices, fireworks were fired at the column, stones and bottles were thrown back, and a group of masked young men attacked the column from behind.

The clash spilled over onto Bulevar oslobodjenja. Senior party officials were there too, with security from the “Kobre” military unit protecting then Serbian Progressive Party president Milos Vucevic. Several people were hurt, among them seven members of that unit, who, according to eyewitnesses, fired shots into the air. Criminal complaints were later filed against several citizens on suspicion of attacking military personnel.

Ivica Dacic commented on the use of firearms that night:

Had he not drawn his service pistol and used it, I am certain that he and everyone else would have suffered serious consequences, and might even have lost their lives.

Novi Sad’s citizens’ assemblies released a visual featuring a red fist with the words “We Remember 13.08.2025.” “Since August 13, 2025, nothing in Novi Sad has been the same,” they said in announcing the commemoration.

Who has answered for it so far?

Not a single police officer. In Valjevo, more than 40 people were beaten on August 14, 2025, including seven minors. Twenty seven injured parties filed criminal complaints against 28 police officers, among them the head of the Valjevo Police Department, along with officers from Valjevo, Mionica, Ljig, Ub, Osecina, Prijepolje, Priboj and Uzice. The Valjevo citizens’ assembly said at the time that 67 people had been detained.

The BIRN investigative center analyzed forensic findings from 25 people who were beaten, on which forensic medicine specialist Djordje Alempijevic spoke to that outlet. The case was taken over by the Organized Crime Prosecutor’s Office at the end of May.

Pressure ahead of August 14

Attorney Nikola Mirkovic, who represents some of the injured parties, says he was summoned to the prosecutor’s office almost a year after the events over a criminal complaint about an assault on an official, dated to August 14 itself.

I am one of ten colleagues acting as legal representatives for the injured parties. The case was opened under the criminal complaint ten months ago at the prosecutor’s office in Valjevo, but under the methodology the prosecutor’s office itself adopted, practically nothing has been done on it since.

Mirkovic says he received the summons the day before and claims a campaign against the lawyers representing the injured parties has been under way for about a month. “I see this as a form of pressure to make us abandon our professional engagement. This isn’t about me, it’s about getting to the truth,” he said.

Vuk Vasiljevic, former head of the Valjevo Gymnasium Student Parliament, describes a similar case: a presenter on local television station V5 read out his school grades live on air. “Grades are legally protected information and cannot be disclosed publicly like that. We don’t know where they came from, and my lawyer has already started working on the case,” Vasiljevic said.

Alongside the “Valjevo Remembers” rally, an informal group of runners and walkers is organizing a 20 kilometer relay from Mionica to Valjevo on August 14.

Backa Palanka: a call with one question

Incidents in Backa Palanka preceded both Vrbas and Novi Sad, occurring on August 11 and 12 of last year. Blockading students from the town have called for a rally on August 16 and boiled their message down to a single question: “Who will answer for it?”

The first of the four rallies begins Wednesday at 8 p.m. in Vrbas.