Students lead massive protests in Serbia against state broadcaster and president

BELGRADE, Serbia — Tens of thousands of protesters led by university students held a noisy rally Friday outside Serbia's state television headquarters in Belgrade to protest what they called the broadcaster's pro-government bias.

The rally came a day after one student was seriously injured when a driver rammed his car into a protesting crowd.

The demonstration, one of the biggest in years against alleged pro-government bias by the RTS television station, is part of wider protests that erupted after the fall of a concrete canopy in the northern city of Novi Sad last November, killing 15 people.

Blowing whistles, booing and jeering, the protesters said they are angry that state television is reporting President Aleksandar Vucic's accusations that the students were paid by foreign secret services with an intention to overthrow him and his populist government by force.

The protesters went silent for 15 minutes in memory of each of the rail station canopy collapse victims. They also chanted demands for a general strike throughout the Balkan country.

Many in Serbia blame the deadly collapse on rampant corruption in the country that led to sloppy renovation work on the station building in Novi Sad — part of a wider deal with Chinese state companies involved in a number of infrastructure projects in the Balkan country.

The canopy collapse has become a flashpoint for broader dissatisfaction with the president's growingly autocratic rule, reflecting public demands for democratic changes.

The daily protests have been held since the deadly canopy collapse on Nov. 1 in Novy Sad as well as Belgrade and other cities throughout the country, which sometimes turned violent.

On Thursday, a car driver fled the scene in downtown Belgrade after the young woman he struck was thrown onto his car roof and then to the ground with bleeding head injuries.

Police said they detained the driver and that he was charged with attempted murder. Several such incidents have been reported during the protests and traffic blockages since they started, but this was the first time there was a serious injury.

Tensions have risen since the incident, including a threat against the protesters in Novi Sad on Friday by a man who wielded a knife against them. Separately, riot police evicted a group of opposition politicians from the town's City Hall after they took over the building in support of the student protesters.

Vucic called the opposition officials ''hoodlums'' and again pledged they would never come to power by force.

He has sided with people who are against the daily street protests saying their freedom of movement has been jeopardized by the daily blockades of traffic. His opponents say that Vucic has created an atmosphere of violence in the country with his fiery anti-protester rhetoric.