News for December 7th, 1996

The organization for the protection of human rights "Human Rights Watch" condemned the "autocratic and racists reactions of the authorities in Serbia" concerning the protests of the opposition and every kind of criticism of the regime.

The Association of Fine Artists of Serbia gave its support to the students of the belgrade University, who have been protesting for the past 14 days against the annulling of the electorial results in Serbia.

Kathy Marton, president of the American Committee for the Protection of Journalists spoke to the president of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade on Saturday. According to Kathy Marton's statement, Milosevic said he would let Radio B-92 be, and promised that the police and army would not intervene in the protests being held in Belgrade and other cities in Serbia.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 university and high-school students walked the street of Novi Sad on Saturday, again.

The victory of the coalition Zajedno on the local elections was celebrated with a large rally in the center of Kragujevac. Nebojsa Popov, one of the heads of the Civil Alliance of Serbia addressed the 30,000 gathered citizens.

The Belgrade Information Center of non-government organizations informed the public on Saturday, that the three demonstrators convicted for throwing eggs and yogurt at the buildings of state-controlled media, had not been let out of police custody, even though it should have been done on Saturday morning.

200,00 people gathered at the opposition rally against the annulling of the electoral results. This is the larges number which gathered at a single rally since the beginning of the protests, 18 days ago.

The Supreme Court of Serbia refused the demand of the city electoral committee and the coalition Zajedno for the reexamination of the verdicts of the first municipal court in Belgrade, which annulled 33 mandates of the coalition which were won in the second ballot, held on November 17.

More than 20,000 students of the Belgrade University planted a "Serbian plumb" on Novi Beograd, which will "bare fruit when democracy come to Serbia". On this, the fourteenth day of the student protest against the annulling of the electoral results of the local elections, students of all the schools of the university, completed the project of the "media blockade" of the pro-government Tanjug news agency, by "covering" it with old newspapers. This was the students response to the manner in which the agency "informs" of their protest "against the authority which does not admit electoral loses", i.e. the will of the voters.

Peaceful protests started in Valjevo two days ago, in support of the other cities in Serbia and demand for the repeating of the elections in 9 electoral units. The number of people is gathering, starting at a few hundred the day before yesterday, a thousand yesterday, and over 2,000 today.

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