“It seems like the last chance”: Czechia’s Serbian community takes part in historic anti-corruption protests

Daniel Sywala
  • “It seems like the last chance”: Czechia’s Serbian community takes part in historic anti-corruption protests
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Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, is currently witnessing historically unparalled peaceful protests against high-level corruption in the country. Serbs elsewhere in the world are playing their part too, including in Czechia. Danny Bate spoke to Daniel Sywala, a broadcaster, journalist and teacher, about the context of the protests, and how Czechia’s Serbian community is getting involved.

Firstly, what is the general context and background to these protests? Who is protesting, and what are their demands?

“It’s mainly students that are protesting. For many years, there have been many issues and big problems with corruption. However, the final last ‘drop’ was the disaster in the city of Novi Sad on November 1st, when a part of the construction of the Novi Sad railway station fell. It eventually killed fifteen people.

“Since then, students have been organising peaceful gatherings, where they keep a fifteen-minute tribute of peace for the victims of this tragedy. It started growing. More and more people have been joining since November 2024. However, the regime has many tricks for how to try to mis-organise and slowly but surely ruin the protests. There were people who were hitting the students in their cars on the streets, while they were trying to do that peaceful fifteen-minute tribute. Now, there is massive support also from various other parts of the community, including taxi drivers and lawyers.

Photo: Pavel Němeček,  ČTK

“When I was talking to certain students living in Serbia and Belgrade, their frustration level is insane. It seems like this is basically the last chance, like we have absolutely almost nothing to lose. Now is the time to just stay and keep protesting. There was the massive protest on March 15th. However, now, as we're talking, they extended this general strike from the 17th to the 19th of March. So, for three days, we're just keeping going.

“As for the demands of the students, there are four. First of all, coming back to that tragedy in Novi Sad, there's a demand to provide documents related to the reconstruction. Second, there is a demand for the prosecution of those who attacked students and professors throughout the protests since November 2024. They also demand a halt of prosecution of the students who were active. The final one is a 20% increase of budget for higher education.”

Bringing the conversation back to this country, what events have been happening in Czechia that are connected to the protests in Serbia?

“Since the tragedy in Novi Sad, there has been a continuous motivation to create peaceful gatherings in higher numbers. It basically started with the first general strike towards the end of January. Since then, peaceful gatherings at Wenceslas Square have been happening more or less every two weeks. This is happening in Prague, where there have been approximately six gatherings. There have also been two in Brno.

“This is very well-coordinated with gatherings all over the world. The beauty of the whole thing is, it's peaceful, non-political, and it spreads awareness.”

Look out for the full interview with Daniel Sywala, in which he discusses not only the current protests but also his work and Czech-Serbian relations in general, later this week.