Hundreds of Serbian students clashed with police on Tuesday during a protest against a police raid on Belgrade University offices, reigniting tensions between authorities and anti-government activists who have clashed regularly for more than a year.
Crowds in Belgrade's city center briefly clashed with police, who used rubber batons to disperse demonstrators chanting "dogs" and "traitors," according to a Reuters witness.
Police said the search was part of an investigation into the death of a 25-year-old student last Friday after she fell from a window in a nearby faculty building.
University Rector Vladan Djokic later told the crowd of protesters that police entered the building without a valid legal explanation, searching for documents, and had seized computers.
"You can raid university premises, but you can't raid people's consciences," he told the cheering crowd.
Dragan Vasiljevic, director of the Serbian police, said that officers were acting on a court order when they entered the university offices to search for evidence related to the student's death.
He told a press conference in Belgrade that police had found fireworks, gas masks, banners and first aid supplies during the search.
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Thousands protest in Belgrade against crackdown on student movement
Anti-government protests have gripped Serbia since December 2024, a month after 16 people died when a shelter collapsed at a railway station in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad.
Last year, protesting students occupied university buildings in many parts of the country, including the main administration building of the University of Belgrade.
Protesters, opposition leaders and human rights watchdogs have accused Serbia's populist President Aleksandar Vucic and his allies of widespread corruption, links to organized crime, violence against political opponents and a crackdown on media freedoms. Vucic and his allies have denied the charges.
