Srdanovic's Instagram Account Shut Down a Second Time
The Student List frontrunner said on Facebook that his Instagram profile was shut down for the second time. The first was on September 20, and the October 25 election is nine days away.
Ilija Srdanovic, the frontrunner of the Student List, said on his Facebook account on the morning of October 16 that his Instagram account has been shut down for the second time. Srdanovic is a cardiologist and professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad, and the election in which he leads the list is scheduled for October 25.
In the post, he said he learned of the shutdown only that morning.
“This morning I realized, I was informed that my Instagram account has been shut down again.”
The account, he claims, was shut down just as he was calling for peace. Later in the post he added that it happened “while I was calling for peace and dignity in the election process and the end of this election process.”
What came before the shutdown?
According to a report by Masina, Srdanovic used the same account the previous evening, October 15, to urge citizens to follow the election process peacefully to the end and to attend the Student List’s closing rally on October 22. His message read:
“We expect you to be reasonable and to avoid conflicts. We call on you to come in the greatest possible numbers on October 22 and support the closing rally of the student list ‘Students Win’. And then, all together, in the greatest possible numbers, with a pencil in hand, let us choose the future of Serbia.”
This is not the first time. Srdanovic’s account was shut down on September 20, a few days after the Student List announced its candidates, when his follower count had reached the tens of thousands. According to the portal 021, he said at the time that he would “not let freedom and justice in Serbia be extinguished.”
The reports carrying his post give no explanation for the shutdown, so the reason has not been independently confirmed. Srdanovic described the shutdown as a suppression of media freedom in Serbia. He said that Student List supporters would stay calm and dignified despite all the pressure, blackmail and, as he put it, dirty tricks, and concluded:
“In the end, on October 25 this year, with a pencil in hand we will bring freedom and justice to this country.”
A shutdown on the day of the ruling side’s rally in Novi Sad
The news came on the day the Serbian Progressive Party and its Together for Serbia list are holding a rally at Freedom Square in Novi Sad, scheduled for 6 p.m. Columns of tractors began arriving in the city around 5:30 a.m. under police escort, and traffic on Mihajla Pupina Boulevard was heavily disrupted as a result. Aleksandar Vucic is expected to speak at the rally. It is the first major rally by the ruling side in the city since the canopy collapse on November 1, 2024.
Students in the blockade called on Novi Sad residents to ignore the rally. The Student List said the city “owes nobody any further proof of its courage” and stated that it had received, as it claims, serious warnings about possible provocations and staged incidents during and after the rally.
The list itself continues its campaign in the field the same day. Rallies have been announced at 17 locations from October 16 to 18, and today they are being held in Gornji Milanovac, Jagodina, Aleksinac, Vlasotince and Bor. Walkers set out from Zajecar for Belgrade, heading to the closing rally on October 22.
