site.btaSerbian Government Minister Calls for Belgrade University Rector's Arrest

Serbia's Public Investment Minister Darko Glisic on Friday called for the arrest of the Rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Djokic, over his support for the students who have been blocking more than 60 university faculties across Serbia in anti-corruption protests which began in November 2024. The protests were sparked by the collapse of a railway station canopy in Novi Sad, which killed 16 people and severely injured one more.

Speaking on the privately-owned Pink television, Glisic said: "Rector Djokic must be arrested because he is playing with the people's money. He is playing with your money, he is playing with my money, he is playing with the money of all citizens watching this show and with the money of citizens not watching this show, because, by getting money from the public purse, he is playing with the destiny of the students and their families and is taking a year of their lives."

Glisic's statement comes at a time when the academic year is apparently jeopardized by the ongoing protests, as the Education Ministry has warned.

In his remarks on Pink, Glisic accused Djokic of corruption.

Earlier, some students and professors proposed setting up an interim government, with academics and intellectuals among its members, to prepare fair and democratic elections, but the idea was not fully embraced by the protesters.

In the middle of February, a civic initiative organization called ProGlas said that the political crisis in Serbia, precipitated by the anti-government protests, had reached its zenith. According to ProGlas, the way out is to form an interim government in which the ministers will be people of prestige, experience and high public approval.

Prof. Vladimir Obradovic of the Faculty of Organizational Sciences at the University of Belgrade described Minister Glisic's statement about Rector Djokic as "outrageous". "If the institutions in this country were functioning, Glisic would have been detained today to bar him from repeating what he said, and proper proceedings would have started against Pink," Obradovic told N1, a regional cable news channel with offices in Belgrade and other Western Balkan capitals.

The professor went on to comment: "Politics is one thing; you may agree or disagree with someone. But to say that a university rector must go to prison, that he is evil incarnate, to put his photo on a wanted persons list, to say that he must be arrested... this is really monstrous."

Earlier on Friday, Education Minister Slavica Djukic-Dejanovic told state-owned RTS television that some university faculties in Serbia will resume classes on April 1, but did not specify which ones. She said professors will receive the full amount of their pay if they go back to teaching according to the established schedule.