Ten thousand students protest in Belgrade

Belgrade, Friday -- About ten thousand Belgrade University students today marched from the Faculty of Philosophy to the Saborna Church and on to the City Assembly where opposition leaders were meeting. The students publicly warned the opposition that there was no more time to waste and that concrete action must be taken.

The leaders of the united opposition did not appear to address the students. Belgrade Mayor Vojislav Mihailovic spoke to the protesters, appealing to them not to allow anyone to drive a wedge between them and the united democratic opposition.

Today's student protest was the culmination of a week of meetings in individual faculties of the university, designed to mobilise student support for Otpor, the student protest movement whose name means "resistance". The meetings have been accompanied by growing chaos in the faculties, with students and academics being barred access to some university premises by private security guards and an announcement yesterday from the Education Ministry that the university would be closed from today, although the semester still has two weeks to run.

The wave of arrests of Otpor activists and supporters also continued today, with fresh arrests in Nis, Kragujevac, Novi Sad and a number of other cities.

Source: B92

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