Police, gendarmerie use batons, pepper spray on citizens, students in Novi Sad

Outside the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education in Novi Sad, where students and citizens have been blocking the entrance since Monday morning, a violent incident broke out after police received orders to attack the gathered crowd. Officers charged the protesters with batons.

The confrontation began when police attempted to approach the building’s entrance but were stopped by a human chain formed by students and citizens.

Despite this, gendarmerie troopers managed to break through using pepper spray to push the crowd back. According to N1’s reporter on the scene, no one was seen entering the building.

The dean attempted to enter the faculty through a rear entrance accompanied by riot police, but was later brought to the front of the building, where protesters threw water at him and pelted police officers with eggs.

Several people were injured during the use of pepper spray, including a journalist and Katarina, a student who previously took part in the cycling protest to Strasbourg. She lost consciousness and was taken away by emergency services.

In response, students inside the faculty building poured water on the police from the windows.

Riot police and gendarmerie troopers took turns attacking citizens from both sides of the building.
Protesters chanted at the police: “Lower your shields,” “Murderers,” “Disobey the orders,” and “You’re going to hell.”

A large number of citizens gathered in front of the faculty, and representatives of student plenaries have called on more Novi Sad residents to join the protest.

Protesters had gathered in front of the faculty earlier in the day to prevent Dean Patrik Drid from “breaking through the blockade” organized by students.

Speaking to N1 earlier in the day, Drid claimed that most students want to take their exams and accused the “blockade group”—whom he said he did not recognize and was seeing for the first time—of preventing him from entering the faculty.

Last Friday Drid entered the building accompanied by unidentified individuals and tore down student protest signs from the main entrance. In response, students told him, “You can’t tear down as many signs as we can make.”

After hours of protests inside and outside the building that day, Drid eventually left the premises with the same unidentified group.

He said he would return to the faculty on Monday to end the blockade. Students involved in the protest have described him as “a known pro-government figure.”/N1/