Incidents at protest in Kula, ruling party supporters launch eggs, pyrotechnics at locals

Police intervened at the scene while, according to Kula residents present, several citizens suffered minor injuries.

The Kula Municipal Assembly meeting began on Tuesday morning. The first two items on the agenda were proposals to dismiss both the Kula assembly speaker and the Kula mayor.

Before the meeting, approximately 150 people gathered in the park near the municipal administration building, most wearing black shirts and fluorescent vests with dark caps.

Local residents who happened to be near the municipal building at that time told N1 that these similarly-dressed men were not from Kula but had been brought in from the towns of Odzaci, Sombor, and Zrenjanin.

“They were standing in the park across from the Kula municipal building, where the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) offices are also located. According to the police, these unidentified individuals wearing black shirts were instructed to come and guard the Kula municipal building. From whom and why, we don’t know,” a local resident told N1.

He added that the situation was very tense while citizens were talking with the individuals in black shirts and vests, noting that a kindergarten, elementary school, music school, and a high school are all located in the part of town where these unidentified uniformed individuals had gathered.

The unidentified men in yellow vests positioned throughout the park unfurled a large banner on the municipal administration building reading “Your color revolution has failed.”

Marko Bosnjak, a local assembly member from the Movement of Free Citizens (PSG), said that during the Tuesday evening citizen protest, this banner was removed from the Kula municipal building and burned.

On the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, citizens stood in the center of Kula in front of a police cordon, while SNS supporters gathered in the small park near the Gerontological Center and their party headquarters.

“They are playing obscene music and shouting ‘Ustasha!’ and ‘Bandits!’... I spoke with the gendarmerie commander about removing ‘the Cacis’ from Kula, after which the citizens would peacefully disperse. The police claim there’s nothing they can do about it,” said Bosnjak.

The name “Caci” has become synonymous with hard-core regime supporters.