Almost daily protests have gripped Serbia since November, following the collapse of a railway station roof that killed 16 people.
The tragedy became a symbol of deep-rooted corruption in the Balkan nation, with demands for a transparent investigation growing into calls for early elections.
At their peak, the protests drew hundreds of thousands onto the streets.
But the mostly peaceful demonstrations deteriorated earlier this week when large groups of pro-government supporters – many masked and some armed with batons and fireworks – attacked protesters.
Serbia is just showing us in really time that peaceful protests are only allowed because they are an inefficient tool to enact change (at best) and a harmful tool at worst.
These protests were massive, lasted for months on end, spanned the whole country, were asking for extremely reasonable and mild changes and still haven’t accomplished anything of note.
I know that the violent side didn’t come from the students but it will be interesting to see if this changes things
I think protests would have been successful by now, if they weren’t shunned by the eu. So I wouldn’t say that the protests are unsuccessful because they are peaceful, but because they aren’t getting the political support from abroad