Pop up blockades: A new protest tactic?

People are back. took to the streets and containers, fences and own bodies blocked numerous streets, bridges, intersections, roads throughout the country, thus responding with an act of civil disobedience to the repression of the authorities, to the action of the police on Vidovdan protest i the arrests that followed.

The students at the Vidovdan protest declared the current government illegitimate and gave the citizens the green light to join the actions at their own discretion.

Citizens understood this call and when on Sunday (June 29) news started to spread about Fr arrest of students, took to the streets and blocked them.

"If they arrest someone, you have no choice but to block them and go to the institutions where they are located. You have to have some kind of response to every type of move," Zoran Stojiljković, a retired professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, told Vreme.

As he adds, "going out and blocking the streets at 30 and odd degrees is hard to understand, but it sends a clear signal - you can't use repression beyond a certain extent."

"You shouldn't try to use violence. When you don't have the possibility to use violence, all you have to do is show radicalism in resistance. You have to have that kind of non-violent struggle methods that go from protests, gatherings, manifestations, proclamations," adds Stojiljković.

The police responded again to the new actions of the citizens - the blockades were broken up in some places during the night, and in Vojvode Stepa Street in Belgrade, the police squads went at full speed towards the people gathered on the street.

Pop up blocking as the next step?

In posts on social networks, students clearly call for the spread of mini-blockades in Belgrade and other places in Serbia and ask for perseverance.

"Blockades must last in order to have an effect. Divide into shifts, take a day off or sick leave. When you can't be there, bring water and food to the crowd. If the police come, take cover without much fuss. When they leave, block again. There are more of us. Equip yourself with chairs and tents. Use fences, tires and containers. Don't be afraid, because we are on the streets together and so they can't do anything to us. The students need you now more than ever," they stated. on social networks, students of the Faculty of Organizational Sciences are blocked.

"We are here until further notice. Tyranny must be stood in the way," they added in the announcement.

A few ideas 👇

Blockades need to last to have an effect. Divide into shifts, take a day off or sick leave. When you can't be there, bring water and food to the crowd.

If the police come, take cover without any fuss. When they leave, block again. There are more of us.

Get ready…

— Blokada Fon (@BlokadaFon) June 29, 2025

Stojiljković explains that perseverance is the key element of the protests that have been going on in Serbia since November 2024.

"When you turn fear and anger as the basic motives for protests into awakened hope, defiance, and even what we call spite, with that sense of social echo that you are not alone, that you are not a fool, an eternal minority that everyone will kick, that is a key change and if we have not fully realized it, we have come close to it," says Stojiljković.

Students blocking the Faculty of Organizational Sciences in Belgrade announced via social networks that on Sunday evening, students who have been blocking faculties for more than seven months, together with citizens, managed to block more than 50 locations in more than 20 cities.

Civil disobedience

Student and civil protests in Serbia have been going on since mid-November last year and began shortly after the fall of the railway station canopy in Novi Sad, when 16 people died.

They quickly spread to all levels of society, and the students' demand to call for extraordinary parliamentary elections followed.

D-Day has often been talked about in recent months - mostly before March 15 and the biggest protest in the history of Serbia, and there were expectations before June 28 as well.

The protest passed, and two days after it, some may agree that Vidovdan 2025 was really D-Day, since the citizens decided to seek discontent and regime change by blocking the streets. It started in Zemun, and soon spread further.

Since the other funds were exhausted, and the government did not respond to the "ultimatum" set by the students - to call elections and dissolve the camp in Pionirski Park, the citizens took matters into their own hands with an act of civil disobedience.

This term has been known for a long time in philosophy and political theory. For John Rawls, the great political philosopher of the 20th century, civil disobedience is a public, nonviolent, political act against the law, carried out precisely to introduce changes in the laws and regulations of government.

Civil disobedience involves activities aimed at changing laws and government activities, which have a clear public, conscious, non-violent and political character. Public and voluntary - because it publicly appeals to the general principles of morality and justice. Political character - because in addressing the holders of power, they are guided by democratic political principles.

Civil disobedience must be a non-violent act, although it may include the symbolic destruction of state symbols, blocking roads, blocking the entrance to the buildings of state institutions, occupying space, but it must not lead to the deliberate injury of another person or the creation of greater material damage, Professor Stojiljković writes in the text of this topic.

As he explains, civil disobedience leads to the exhaustion of all legal means to eliminate injustice.

As he further states, the goal of civil disobedience is to stimulate the public to think, awaken ethical considerations, question the legitimacy of the government, and create a social climate that will force the government to change.

More about the events at the blockades throughout Serbia read in the blog "Time".