Student List Rally at Slavija on October 22 at 6 p.m.

The final rally of the “Student List - Students Win” slate at Belgrade’s Slavija Square starts on Thursday, October 22, at 6 p.m. The students in blockade announced the start time on Instagram on Sunday evening. The rally, called “Victory Calls,” takes place just before the campaign silence begins, three days ahead of the snap parliamentary elections scheduled for October 25.

“The program at Slavija starts at 6 p.m. The place that remembers our greatest moments will once again be a symbol of unity, determination, strength and victory”

That is what the students in blockade said on Instagram. We previously reported on the departure of 150 students from Gornji Milanovac, and two more columns set off today.

Where are the walking columns ahead of the Slavija rally?

The Student List has organized walking routes from several parts of Serbia. The situation on the ground on Monday, October 19:

• Sabac: the column left around 9 a.m. and should reach the village of Banjani near Ub by the end of the day, where locals will welcome it. One police patrol drives ahead of the column and one behind it.
• Valjevo: around a hundred students and citizens set off in the morning, without a police escort.
• Zajecar: the group has been walking since October 16 and continued this morning from Petrovac na Mlavi, with an overnight stop planned in Pozarevac. Police accompany only the rear of the column.
• Gornji Milanovac: the column reached Ljig on Sunday evening, joins the Valjevo column in Lajkovac, and should arrive in Lazarevac by evening.
• Novi Sad: the column sets off on Tuesday, October 20, and arrives in Belgrade on October 21.

The columns merge at Student Square in Belgrade on Wednesday, October 21.

Milica Macos, a student walking on the Zajecar route, described the mood in the group to N1: “We are all rested, even though the route is quite demanding, nobody is complaining, we have no serious injuries on the road, we have music.” Veljko Trifunovic, also a student in the column, said: “The message is that we know how, and we chose people who know how. Nobody is tired and we have to push this through to the end. If we have fought for two years already, we can do one more week.”

High school senior Natalija Tosic told N1 that the column is carrying flyers: “We carry flyers so that people get the invitation, so they know a protest is being held on October 22. We hope that as we pass through villages we will hand them to people who haven’t seen them before, and that they will decide to give some other kind of support or to show up.”

Why does the Valjevo column have no police escort?

According to N1’s reporter, the organizers of the Valjevo walk reported it to the police, but the head of the police department at the Valjevo Police Administration told them the procedure had not been properly completed. Students who went to the police administration in the morning were also told that the police would not secure the walk and that the form was not valid. Marshals from within the column are therefore directing traffic.

Student Vuk Vasiljevic told N1 that this departs from past practice: “It’s unusual, until now every time we went on marches we had a police escort from Valjevo.” In the sources we reviewed, there is no explanation from the Valjevo Police Administration of why the column has no escort.

What are the students telling the authorities ahead of the rally?

On Sunday evening, the students posted a statement on X saying they know the authorities are recording their meetings and that arrests of students are being prepared ahead of the Slavija rally. They name Informer, other pro-government media and the top of the state leadership as those portraying them as violent, and they announce new “documentaries” on national television channels.

“We also know what they are preparing for us in the last week of the election campaign. The dirtiest lies, the biggest setups and even harsher repression against those who have been on the streets for two years. So let us tell them right away: Record. Listen. Listen again. You will find nothing illegal”

The students also write that a story is spreading that they supposedly plan to abduct one of their own colleagues in order to blame the authorities for it. Their response reads:

“We don’t see this as just another ordinary spin. We see this as a direct threat. Because what if one of our colleagues disappears tomorrow? What if they lock him up who knows where, and then tell us from national frequencies: ‘Well, we told you they organized it all themselves?’ Where will our colleague be then? Who will know what happened to him?”

In the sources we reviewed, there is no response to these claims from the authorities, the police or Informer.

What does the first name on the list say?

Ilija Srdanovic, the first name on the Student List, told reporters on Sunday that the slate calls for a peaceful end to the campaign: “We did not call for tensions in Nis, or in Novi Sad, or anywhere else in Serbia. We call for the election process to end peacefully and with dignity, for us to calmly choose a new government in Serbia on the 25th, deeply believing that it will be the Student List - Students Win.”

Srdanovic added that his Instagram account is still blocked. It was blocked for the second time on October 16, and the first time on September 20.