One Year After Student Protests Shook Valjevo, Serbia Stands at a Critical Crossroads

Demonstrators hold 15 minutes of silence for the victims of the deadly November 2024 Novi Sad railway station roof collapse, during an antigovernment protest staged by Serbian students to commemorate a mass rally held last year, in Kragujevac, Serbia, on February 15, 2026.

The video lasts only a few seconds. A man lies on a street in Valjevo, a city about 90km (56 miles) southwest of the capital, Belgrade. Several police officers surround him, striking him as he lies on the ground. The footage became one of the most recognisable pieces of evidence of police violence during student-led protests that shook Serbia on August 14, 2025.

In the year since, the protests have grown into a mass movement challenging the longstanding political dominance of President Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s leader of more than a decade, who has sought to balance close ties with Moscow with the country’s declared path towards the European Union. Blockades spread across the country as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets. Students moved beyond their initial demands for accountability over the concrete canopy collapse at Novi Sad railway station in November 2024, which killed 16 people, and began calling for broader political change.

Valjevo remains a place to measure how much Serbia has changed and how far the student movement is prepared to go. Darija Rankovic, editor-in-chief of the news portal Kolubarske.rs, noted that the city experienced deep trauma that night. She recently became the target of a public smear campaign after media outlets close to the government accused her of bringing down the state, leaving independent journalists in an extremely dangerous position.

Despite threats, Rankovic intends to cover the upcoming anniversary rally in Valjevo. While police maintained that the use of force was lawful and followed citizen attacks on officers, critics point to widespread impunity. Belgrade-based writer Tomislav Markovic recalled that masked attackers vandalised a cafe and assaulted an auto repair shop owner and customers the day after the protests, with no accountability enforced under President Aleksandar Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

Markovic noted that the student movement has awakened suppressed energy, though he also warned of rising nationalist symbols and rhetoric within the ranks. Human rights activist Aida Corovic, who has supported the students since the beginning, echoed these concerns, cautioning that the movement cannot separate itself from the nationalist environment in which the students grew up. Nevertheless, Corovic and other observers agree that Valjevo has become a powerful symbol of the ongoing struggle for accountability and the future direction of Serbia.