If students and citizens ask for some engagement from me, I am ready to accept that engagement, stated the Rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, when asked if he would be a presidential candidate.
After yesterday, following almost ten hours of searching the Rectorate premises by members of the UKP, Vladan Đokić addressed the citizens who gathered in support in front of this institution from the balcony with a high-raised fist, the Rector of the University of Belgrade has been seen by the public as a student presidential candidate.
Guesting on Nova TV, he said that if students and citizens ask for some engagement from him, he is ready to accept that engagement.
„That fist is a kind of promise, a kind of consistency that we will persevere on our path. We still do not know when the elections will be and which elections they will be. What we do know is the fact that I did not apply there or agitate as someone who has the political ambition to be a political leader. I am a University professor, the Rector of the University. However, in a situation where the university is attacked, in a situation where the police raid the university, in a situation where citizens are waiting outside, I have an obligation to respond to those citizens and to address them in some way. If students and citizens ask for some engagement from me, I am ready to accept that engagement,“ he said.
Speaking about the police raid on the Rectorate, Đokić said that it was the first time that any service had raided that building since the occupation in World War II.
„This is the first and only time since World War II and the occupation that a service has raided the Rectorate in Belgrade; it did not happen in 1968 or 2006, and it is happening now for the first time,“ Đokić stated.
He explains that when the police arrived with a warrant, they told him they had come to investigate connections to the unfortunate case of a female student from the Faculty of Philosophy who tragically lost her life, but that the order did not mention that; instead, it requested a search of the premises and that he was suspected of abuse of office.
He stated that during the search of the premises, members of the UKP found materials left over from student protests, and that he signed all the records except for one which, as he said, concerned a procedural error they suspect was intentional.
„The entire process of observation and searching for materials consisted of their members and two of our employees going with them to pass through every room and find materials,“ he said.
He clarified that a search was conducted in a basement entered from the rectorate courtyard and that at first nothing was found, but later someone called one of the UKP members to go back into that room.
„And then they entered again without our employees. And then in that second search, they allegedly found firecrackers that suddenly appeared. I did not want to sign that part of the record,“ the Rector of UB explained.
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Source: N1, Photo: N1