STUDENTS TO WELCOME VUČIĆ IN NIŠ TOMORROW: “No one would want to see such a man in their city!”

Tomorrow at 11 a.m., a session of the SNS Main Board will be held at the National Theatre in Niš, which, according to announcements, will also be attended by Aleksandar Vučić. Students have called on citizens from the city and surrounding areas to gather in order to jointly welcome President Aleksandar Vučić and SNS members. They say that the president is not welcome anywhere after the terror he has inflicted on all citizens of Serbia, especially over the past two years.

According to information published so far, the Main Board of the Serbian Progressive Party will meet tomorrow at 11 a.m. at the National Theatre in Niš. Aleksandar Vučić has confirmed that he is coming to Niš and told his political opponents that they “are free to heckle him.”

“I thought they had come to their senses, but apparently they haven’t. I ask the police to let them, just so I can see exactly what they will do. But just don’t call the police afterward,” he said.

However, the police are not letting them. According to the students, they were called in today for questioning because of tomorrow’s protest, but despite those calls, they say their welcome for Vučić will begin at 10:30 a.m. at Crveni Pevac.

Student Dušan from Niš says that “this man is not welcome anywhere after the terror he has inflicted not only on students, but on all citizens of Serbia, especially over the past two years.”

“We have witnessed all these terrible events and we believe that this is something unacceptable. And simply, no one would want to see such a man in their city. There will, of course, be gatherings. We have seen various spins coming from members of the ruling party, claiming that they are the victims of violence, which has never been the case, and it is not the case now either,” he says.

Our interlocutor says that students are gathering to send a clear message through peaceful and dignified protests, and that the goal of every protest is precisely that noise.

“The goal of every protest is to send a message. The message is being sent precisely in this way: we want to be heard. And we are doing it the same way we have done so far. It is horrifying that students, activists, and others have been spied on,” Dušan adds.

It was reported today that two students from the Faculty of Law in Niš were surveilled using Pegasus software, and he says that every one of his colleagues who was more active in the blockades has experienced being recorded at some point, with their private conversations published on portals, on pro-government portals.

“And that really is something very disturbing. I cannot say that we do not feel safe, but you can simply understand that it is not pleasant. What is a fact is that students have always done everything very transparently. We have always talked about every next step, every decision of ours was made at the level of the whole of Serbia, with many higher-education institutions cooperating. We do not deal in secrets, we do not engage in fraud. They can listen to our meetings and conversations until tomorrow. In any case, all information is always made public. We have always been transparent with everyone,” he said.

Luka Nićiforović, a student at the Faculty of Law, listed a number of reasons why “the president is not welcome” in Niš. He says that genuine support for him in the city no longer exists, and that employees in public enterprises are threatened with dismissal in order to make them attend SNS rallies.

“The city government is not legitimate, as we know. The SNS lost the previous elections in Niš, the citizens of Niš have already expressed their dissatisfaction democratically, the elections were usurped, and we did not expect anything else. The south is continuously being depopulated the most, compared with all other regions in Serbia,” he told N1.

The students have called on citizens to bring whistles, vuvuzelas, Serbian flags, and banners.

“Let them hear us and let them see us. Niš is not a party fiefdom, Niš is an imperial city,” the students in the blockade from the city said.