In November, Serbia marks 1 year since the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse, and the subsequent student protests sparked by it. Today, despite increasing global attention, concerns over the country’s human rights situation are deepening, and civilian society warns about escalating repression as the government responds to dissent. The Human Rights home Foundation spoke with Jovana Spremo, Advocacy manager at the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM), about this situation and more.
HUMAN RIGHTS home FOUNDATION: It has been 1 year since the protests triggered by the Novi Sad station collapse, which killed 16 people and seriously injured 1 more. What is the current state of the student movement that emerged from the disaster?
JOVANA SPREMO: The student movement has evolved importantly since the end of November last year. What began as a spontaneous call for justice and accountability over the tragic failure and killing of people as a consequence of the fall of the train station canopy has matured into a broader social movement.
The demands of the movement have changed over this period, and they have adapted as the situation has developed, depending on the consequence from the government – or the deficiency thereof.
As of June this year, the students have compiled all their demands into a request for elections due to the fact that they realized that without at least partially free elections, and the anticipation of a change of government, there is no way that they can actually scope the level of accountability that they are calling for.
One thing that has not changed is the organization of the movement. There is inactive no leadership by design, and I must note that this kind is different for this region. But, against all odds, it’s actually working, and the students are reaching people.
The reason the student movement remains leaderless is that this is the easiest way for them to avoid being attacked by the government, which would very much like the movement to be silenced.
Some have compared these protests with the Otpor protests of the late 1990s and early 2000s, which led to the ousting of Milošević. Do you have any thoughts on this comparison?
They have both been revolutionary, but I wouldn’t say they are similar, due to the fact that the Otpor movement happened in a different era – it was a post-war movement.
The Otpor movement was a joint movement including students, activists and the opposition, fighting the criminal government of Slobodan Milošević. It was an inevitable movement due to the fact that no 1 was free in society at that time.
The student movement in Serbia present has, in a way, an even bigger task due to the fact that the situation is so different. Mobilizing people is harder than back then.
Serbians have enjoyed a degree of democracy since the 2000s, which is simply a success of the Otpor movement. And as a result, people present do not have the same immense existential problems that were faced back then – with the exception, of course, of socially susceptible groups. Although there is simply quite a few underrepresentation in the country, it’s hard to mobilize half of the population to actually participate in this kind of revolutionary action.
But today’s social movement is highly important, and it’s actually waking up people who were not very curious in politics and who are now becoming very aware that everything is political. It seems like people are realizing just now, after more than 30 years of the multiparty system, that if they want to have the liberties and services that they are paying for with their paycheques, they actually request a liable political option in power.
Can you give an overview of erstwhile excessive force against protesters began?
In the first 5 months since the protests began, the government didn’t know how to respond, and their strategy changed all fewer weeks.
At first, the government tried to be friendly and appeal to the students. They offered very inexpensive apartments for youth, talked of better pensions, etc.
So this was the first approach to dealing with the movement, but it didn’t work, and then the government became more vocally derisive and critical of the students. But it was, at least, peaceful until March 15th, which marked a change in the government’s consequence to the protests [through the usage of a “sound cannon” that yet caused a stampede – editor’s note].
Together with 5 another civilian society organizations (CSOs), YUCOM collected testimonies from the people affected. And since people had never experienced this kind of attack before, everyone realized that they were not alone and that this was an organized attack against them, citizens peacefully exercising their freedoms of assembly and expression.
And since this caused quite a few global attention, as well as attention inside Serbia, the force mounted on the government to give a response.
Initially, the government emphatically denied possession of any specified device, then, after a fewer days, they admitted that they did indeed have it and said “yes, we have the device, but it’s not capable of this kind of action.”
If there is no device, then how does the government explain the now celebrated video footage of protesters dispersing? According to the president, it was orchestrated and choreographed –standard practice within a “colour revolution”.
At that moment, we realized that not only do the authorities actually have this kind of device, but possibly they don’t decently know how to usage it. Either they utilized it with intention against people, or they let individual who is not trained usage it. In either scenario, individual must be held accountable, and the device appears to be in the possession of the police force.
Organizations that collected the testimonies initiated a case before the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR), and it’s inactive ongoing.
After that, the governmental repression truly escalated from June 28th, erstwhile there were protests in Belgrade. That was the first time we had a immense clash between the police and protesters, and quite a few people were beaten, media representatives were attacked. There was quite a few unlawful usage of force. This pattern of repression continued with all subsequent large protest.
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In the Human Rights home Foundation’s spring coverage, your colleague Uroš Jovanović noted that the student movement had consciously distanced itself from civilian society. Has this changed?
The distance remains as a safety measure, but in practice, there are any developments. erstwhile the student movement first set its rules, it was to defend itself from attacks. Originally, they had no leaders and a very loose structure. This was to avoid the stigma that civilian society faces. They distanced themselves from the opposition, civilian society, and any organized organization or movement, though individuals from anywhere were welcome to join the protests. That approach made sense at the start of the protests.
After a year, that rule remains. I believe that by now, they’ve begun to admit which part of civilian society is legitimate and has applicable expertise. To answer the question clearly, there is no formal cooperation between the CSOs and the student movement, but they do trust on legitimate CSO investigation or findings.
You mentioned the stigma that civilian society faces. Can you elaborate on that?
Civil society in Serbia faces tremendous stigma due to the fact that the propaganda device from the 1990s was never switched off.
Civil society is broadly perceived as “foreign mercenaries or traitors” of the Serbian nation. This propaganda was targeting mainly those working on war crimes and dealing with the past during the 1990s, and that remained a widespread perception, since no government was very eager to remove this stigma. So the consequence is that the CSOs present are inactive massively portrayed as being against the Serbian people and society, which is clearly far from the truth.
Civil society does not enjoy much trust among the broader public, but I tend to think this is changing — and it’s been changing rapidly, since March 15th. What motivates us as civilian society now is that we see possible for change, and we see greater interest from the public in our work.
Why do you do this work despite the risks and stigma? What motivates you?
As a student, I thought that I wanted to work within diplomacy, but I realized that the work of civilian society is precisely where my heart was. You put your cognition toward the values you believe in so that everyone can have equal access to the law and services that this country should have.
Civil society is accused of serving abroad interests, but our only interest is to service people in Serbia, to admit and respond to their needs. And even if citizens don’t realize it that way, we work for them.
For our organization YUCOM, for example, our primary function is to supply free legal aid to citizens. We can do that only if we work in a good legal framework and if we have functioning institutions in Serbia, which are both very questionable lately. But we work within the framework of the Serbian constitution, where the rights of the citizens are guaranteed. The problem is that this is not applied to all citizen of Serbia equally, so we strive to change that.
How would you characterize the current environment for civilian society and human rights defenders in Serbia? What are the fresh pressures or persecution patterns you are seeing that might not have existed a year ago?
The situation now is rather different from last year, and it continues to deteriorate. Attacks on civilian society have always existed, but since, possibly 2020, they’ve worsened. We track them in our “map of incidents”, and early on, most attacks were smear campaigns, different kinds of smear campaigns from various politicians targeting critical voices from civilian society. Then came the infamous list of 104 CSOs and individuals investigated by the Administration for the Prevention of Money Laundering. We warned the public that this was happening, and the investigations yet went nowhere, due to the strong global reactions of the misuse of the anti-money laundering government in this way.
With the emergence of the environmental protests in Serbia (2020–23), misdemeanour charges began to emergence as part of the strategy of the authorities, which includes intimidating “informative talks” and accusations of “undermining the constitutional order”. The criminal charges didn’t go through, but they were meant to intimidate. Many plea agreements were signed, which was precisely the deterrence tactic.
Meanwhile, we had this “dialogue” with civilian society with regards to the EU integration process, due to the fact that the authorities are obliged to have civilian society at the table. Government representatives would sit there pretending to be nice, while at the same time, environmental activists were being arrested, or these misdemeanour charges were being issued, and smear campaigns against civilian society were moving in the tabloids.
Things escalated, and in late 2023, we had reason to believe that the government was utilizing spyware to monitor civilian society. In 2024, Amnesty International’s Digital Prison report revealed that this spyware had been planted on activists’ phones while they were detained in police custody, likely by the secret service. Again, Serbian CSOs, including YUCOM, filed criminal charges, but nothing has moved in these cases. A case was besides opened by the ombudsman, but this is besides not going anywhere, since this institution is besides 1 captured by the state.
In February, armed police raided 5 NGOs — allegedly over USAID funds — they sent 20 armed policemen into the premises of 5 organizations, including our neighbours Civic Initiatives, besides a associate of Human Rights home Belgrade. They took quite a few documentation, but a formal investigation was never opened. Despite that, the president publically referred to the seizure of these papers as a “pre-investigation”.
The Human Rights home in Belgrade was vandalised in late October 2025. Photo: Human Rights House
So this is the environment that we’re working in. Just a fewer days ago, Human Rights home Belgrade was vandalized with graffiti calling us Ustaše, something they like to call us to paint us as being anti-Serbian, and “blokaderi”, a word for the student blockades.
After the February incidents and the relentless smear campaigns, we, the civilian society groups gathered as part of the National Convention on EU (the authoritative platform for civilian society cooperation on EU integration), withdrew from all high-level authoritative cooperation with the government, and most of the CSOs withdrew from the government’s working groups.
For years, we’ve had this situation where the government slaps you with 1 hand and offers candy with the other. Now we’ve stopped playing along, since nothing we said at those tables was always taken seriously.
What do you identify as the major risks or threats to the student movement – and to Serbian civilian society more broadly – in the upcoming months?
It depends a lot on what happens in November. We’ve seen how erstwhile large protests went — June 28th, the protests throughout August and September — with police openly attacking peaceful protesters. If that repeats, I think we’ll be entering the final phase of the government’s repression.
How that will look depends on their external goals and how the EU continues to deal with them. The EU’s speech has shifted somewhat — they’re now addressing messages more to the Serbian people than saying that the government is actually what the country represents to them. A lot depends on whether Vučić will keep trying to prosecute EU membership or will abandon it. But the EU has been useful for him, they utilized mechanisms from EU integration to misuse related funds. This is besides part of Laura Kövesi’s investigation into the misuse of EU funds for railway projects.
I’m not an expert in these kinds of scenarios, but if November turns violent — utilized as a pretext for police brutality — I think it will show where the government stands. There’s uncertainty: at the October 1st assembly, there was almost no police presence, even after the force in September. Still, the government’s “expecting violence” rhetoric is simply a clear informing sign — for us, that they’re preparing to make it.
What function do global actors — EU institutions, UN mechanisms, and the Council of Europe — presently play in supporting the civic space and human rights in Serbia?
Since December last year, we’ve had more communication with UN mechanisms than always before. Serbia has drawn different attention from UN peculiar procedures — including the peculiar Rapporteurs on human rights defenders, freedom of assembly and association, freedom of expression, torture, judicial independence, and education. There were six or 7 authoritative communications to the government, and 2 requests for country visits. The government acknowledged them but never set dates, so those visits won’t happen this year.
The UN advanced Commissioner for Human Rights besides offered an independent investigation into the sonic device case — again, no response. Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights issued interim measures that led to a full case, and both the Council of Europe and the European Parliament rapporteurs reacted. The fresh European Parliament resolution on Serbia is peculiarly firm and detailed. I’d besides say the fresh EU enlargement Commissioner is far more attentive to civilian society and activist concerns than his predecessor.
A year ago, your colleagues (Dragoslava Barzut, a Public Policy Programme Manager; and Alma Mustajbašić, a investigator at Civic Initiatives) spoke about the deficiency of global attention on developments in Serbia, despite the EU’s obligations to monitor candidate countries. From your position in 2025, has this changed?
I see these as crucial symbolic gestures. The chances of the students winning the Sakharov Prize were never going to be besides advanced compared to another awards, but I think it was a very good symbolic motion to show the students that there is individual in the EU who actually thinks that what they did is highly appreciated in the course of fighting for freedom and democracy.
It’s the same with their Nobel Prize candidacy: it’s not about winning, but about recognition. The motion besides mirrors their own symbolism — biking to Strasbourg and moving to Brussels — presenting their case in the heart of the EU, not necessarily going into whether they are pro‑EU or not, but simply young people making a stand for democratic values.
International awareness of Serbia’s situation has grown noticeably since April or May and is now peaking, with the issue reaching the European Parliament. We’ll see how the institutions respond, but it’s already a major topic. We’ve spent months alerting global bodies, and now, after six months, we’re yet seeing stronger engagement and concrete recommendations on how the government should act.
How can global actors support the pro-democratic population in Serbia?
First of all, the approaches gotta change. global actors request to halt addressing only the government of Serbia and start addressing certain messages to the Serbian people. This is so crucial due to the fact that now is the minute erstwhile these actors are being watched by our citizens.
The second thing would definitely be continuing to invest in democratic forces — whether this would be among civilian society, or in the political sphere. There are pro‑democracy opposition representatives who want to supply democratic solutions for the country. Of course, it is besides worth investing in the student movement.
And by investing, I don’t only mean money. Training, mobilization meetings, building trust and partnership or whatever can actually aid them scope as many people as possible with their messages. This is the minimum that needs to be done, and there is no better time than now.
This interview was first published by the Human Rights home Foundation
Jovana Spremo is Advocacy manager of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights and manages the advocacy activities of the organization, with a peculiar focus on the independency of the judiciary and human rights. She holds a BA in global Relations from the Faculty of Political discipline of the University of Belgrade. Beyond this, she holds an interdisciplinary MA in global Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law, as well as an LLM in European Integration, from the Law Faculty of the University of Belgrade. She is the coordinator of the Working Group for Chapter 23 of the National Convention on European Union.
The Human Rights home Foundation is an global non-governmental organization that establishes and supports Human Rights Houses – coalitions of local independent civilian society organizations working to advance human rights at home and abroad. present 80+ CSOs are united in the Network of Human Rights Houses, which are active across east and Western Europe, the Balkans and the Caucasus.
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