Valjevo Protest Set for Friday, Route Passes Police HQ
The Valjevo protest is set for Friday at 7 PM in front of the gymnasium. Stands open at 5, the march passes police headquarters at 7:30, and the stage program runs an hour with one demand.
Students in blockade have released the full program for the gathering that will be held in Valjevo on Friday, August 14, the anniversary of the night when 67 people were detained in the city. The Valjevo protest opens with a gathering in front of Valjevo Gymnasium at 7 PM, and the schedule and route were published on the site blokade.org.
Stands go up earlier, from 5 PM on Gradski trg (Town Square). The march toward the stage is set to leave at 7:30 PM, and the stage program starts at 8 and runs until 9.
The march route
The route was published in advance, street by street:
- Valjevo Gymnasium
- Vuka Karadzica
- Karadjordjeva
- Sindjeliceva
- Mirka Obradovica
- Bulevar palih boraca (Boulevard of the Fallen Fighters), past the Interior Ministry building
- Uzun Mirkova
- the stage
The stretch along Bulevar palih boraca takes the march straight past the police headquarters, a point the organizers themselves flagged in the published plan. After the stage program, the walk continues along Vladike Nikolaja Street to Eurocentar, then along Sindjeliceva to Karadjordjeva.
“There we will spread out along the main city street and, between the intersections with Vlade Danilovica and Hajduk Veljkova streets, mark the spots where people were beaten on August 14. We will end the gathering at the Town Square,” the students said.
The gathering is titled “A Year Without Justice, Valjevo Remembers.” The spots where residents were hurt that night are thus written into the route itself, marked as a stop along the walk rather than mentioned only from the stage.
What happened in Valjevo in August 2025?
The events span three separate nights, not one incident.
On the night of August 13, 2025, masked attackers ransacked the Romana cafe in front of a police cordon, injuring the owner, his minor son, and customers.
The following night, between August 14 and 15, police used excessive force against citizens, according to the students. Sixty seven people were detained, most of them young, and many of them were injured. Footage from the streets of Valjevo shows riot police using batons and kicks against people who were already on the ground. The clip that drew the most attention showed a group of officers standing over a fifteen year old boy lying motionless on the pavement.
The violence continued on August 15, when masked attackers broke into an auto repair shop and injured the owner and a customer, then ransacked the Skver cafe, where a worker was hurt.
Where the case stands
Some of the injured residents have turned to the courts. According to the legal team representing them, 27 people filed criminal complaints in October against 28 police officers, both named and unnamed, over suspected unlawful conduct.
In May 2026, nearly a year after the events, the case was taken over by the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime. The names of the officers who overstepped their authority have not been made public, the identities of the masked attackers remain unknown too, and no official has answered for the August nights in Valjevo.
We previously reported that the Valjevo prosecutor’s office had asked for the August 14 gathering to be formally registered.
What both sides have said
The Serbian government said on August 17, 2025, that responsibility for the Valjevo incident needed to be established, while at the same time condemning violence against police officers. The Interior Ministry said at the time that a large number of police officers had also been injured during the clashes that took place across Serbia that evening, and denied claims of excessive use of force.
In a call posted to their Instagram profile, the students asked one question:
“Who do you call when the police break the law?”
The gathering has a single demand, and the organizers frame it as a question of accountability rather than a date to mark.
“It is a demand that accountability be established, and a message that the passing of time must never become an excuse for forgetting and impunity. Because what happened in Valjevo is not just one city’s problem. It is a question of every citizen’s right to safety and protection from violence. A year without justice. Valjevo remembers. Serbia remembers,” the students said.
In the statement accompanying the published program, they repeated why they are coming back on Friday.
“That is why we are gathering again in Valjevo on August 14. Not to forget what happened, but to remind everyone that accountability must not depend on how much time has passed. To remember the people who were injured that night. And to ask again the question that has been left without a clear answer: who will bear responsibility for what happened on August 14, 2025,” the students said.
What is different this time
Residents and students in Valjevo turn out on the 14th of every month under the same banner, “Valjevo Remembers,” so Friday’s protest is not the first of its kind. What sets it apart is the date, which lands on the round anniversary, and the fact that this time a precise route was published, one that passes the police headquarters and the marked spots where people were injured.
The legal side of the story is moving slower than the symbolic one. The case has changed hands and now sits with the prosecutor’s office that handles the most serious forms of crime, but no name has been made public from either side. That gap is the measure the organizers set for themselves on Friday: the gathering lasts two hours, from 7 to 9 PM, while the question of accountability has stood open for twelve months.
