Serbia’s Populist Chief Denounces Deliberate Belgrade Bridge Blockade After Shootings

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia’s populist chief has sharply denounced opposition plans to dam a key bridge and motorway in Belgrade on Friday to press their calls for within the wake of final week’s mass shootings within the Balkan nation that left 17 folks lifeless, together with many youngsters.

President Aleksandar Vucic mentioned that the deliberate opposition protest afterward Friday amounted to “violence in politics” and “harassment” of residents. However, Vucic mentioned, police wouldn’t intervene to forestall it “except folks’s lives are at risk.”

“What offers them the suitable to dam different folks’s regular lives?” mentioned Vucic, including that the opposition have been “abusing the tragedy” following the shootings that deeply rattled the nation and triggered requires change.

“They’re harassing residents and never permitting them to journey,” Vucic insisted. “However we do not wish to beat protesters, like France and Germany do.”

The rally on Friday comes every week after 1000’s marched in Belgrade. They have been demanding the resignations of presidency ministers and the withdrawal of broadcast licenses for 2 personal TV stations that are near the state and promote violence. They typically host convicted struggle criminals and crime figures on their applications.

Protests with the identical calls for have been held up to now week in numerous cities and cities in Serbia. Opposition officers mentioned the bridge blockade in Belgrade on Friday night would final for 2 hours.

The 2 shootings occurred in simply two days, leaving 17 folks lifeless and 21 wounded. A 13-year-old boy final Wednesday used his father’s gun to open hearth at his college in central Belgrade, whereas a day later a 20-year-old randomly fired at folks in a rural space south of Belgrade.

Opposition events have mentioned that Vucic’s populist authorities has fueled intolerance and hate speech, whereas taking maintain of all establishments, thus stoking divisions. Vucic has denied this. He has referred to as his personal rally for Could 26 in Belgrade that he mentioned could be the “greatest ever.”

“We don’t set up spontaneous rallies to be able to play with folks’s feelings,” Vucic insisted. “Ours shall be a rally of unity, after we will announce necessary political choices.”

Vucic additionally informed reporters that residents had handed in additional than 9,000 weapons since police introduced a one-month amnesty for folks to give up unregistered weapons and ammunition or face attainable jail sentences after that interval.

Serbia is estimated to be among the many high nations in Europe on the subject of the variety of weapons per capita, a lot of them left over from the wars within the Nineteen Nineties. Different anti-gun measures after the shootings embrace a ban on new gun licenses, stricter controls on gun homeowners and capturing ranges, and harder punishments for the unlawful possession of weapons.

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