Student Protest '96

December 5th, 1996

12:00 CET
(11:00 GMT)
Student gatherings at Plato in front of the School of Philosophy. Same as during the past few days, many professors and famous people spoke to the students today, and many letters of support were read.

In the beginning, the demands of the students, for Dragutin Velickovic, the chancellor of the University of Belgrade,and Vojin Djurdjevic, student vice-chancellor to be dismissed, were repeated. The students expressed their support to the citizens of Belgrade, stating that they're not choosing between the government and and the opposition parties, but declaring themselves for the respect of the electoral law.

It has been announced that 850 teachers and associates of the University of Belgrade have signed the students' petition by now, and that number is still rising.

In the name of the school council of the school of philosophy, professor Mirjana Pesic, expressed the respect of the rights of the students to declare themselves against the non-democratic elections.

Assistant of the law school, Velimir Stanimirovic, informed the students gathered at Plato about the last nights decision of the school council to completely stop the work of this school, and made the suggestion to the students to bring brushes and brooms and wash the chancellor's office tomorrow, which was accepted with approval.

Students of the technical school and school of mathematics and natural sciences have supported the students' protests in Belgrade with their petition, and called upon the teachers and chancellor of the university of Montenegro to join them, and the media to present the true situation in the streets of Belgrade.

The students of the school of medicine have called upon their teachers to join the students and support their demands.

An unofficial, but very important demand of the students, is for the disruption of the radio stations INDEX and B92 to be stopped. On that occasion a reporter of Radio Index, Novica Popovic, spoke to the students, accusing Dragoljub Milanovic, the director of RTS, Milan Topalovic, the technical director of RTS, and Predrag Zubovic, the supervisor of the transmission equipment, for suppressing the freedom of speech. The independent association of reporters called upon all the reporters to gather in front of the building of B92 radio station on Friday, December 6TH, in the name of the protest against the media blackout.

13:00 CET
(12:00 GMT)
The Walk

The route for today was: Vasina St, Kolarceva St, Srpskih Vladara Street to Slavija Square then along Beogradska St. and Bulevar revolucije and back to Plato.

The motto of today's walk is "WE DON'T TEAR DOWN,WE BUILD". This slogan was written in Serbian and English on the brick wall the students built in front of the Federal Parliament building. The bricks were carried from hand to hand along the procession. "Should the granting of our demands be dragged out, we shall probably build a wall high enough not to see them any more", said Dragan Vasiljevic, spokesman of the Students Protest '96

About 35,000 students gathered at Plato today prove that the student protest '96 is not ceasing, but on the contrary getting more and more followers. Numerous supports and some resignations encourage the students to be persistent in their demands.

EDIE


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