Two Novi Sad students injured in clash with masked men

The students, part of the informal STAV group, were there to try to prevent what they say is an illegal vote for the student parliament at the university. They said that masked men were inside the building allegedly guarding the ballot boxes and documents. STAV activists disrupted earlier attempts to organize a vote for the student parliament, claiming it was fixed to elect regime supporters.

Student activist Branislav Djordjevic told reporters that the two activists were injured in a struggle with the masked men inside the building, adding that they first threw an explosive device at the students. “We saw that some 15 masked men were inside with documents allegedly from some student conference on cyber security, an invented event…. Three students went over to see what was going on and they threw some kind of explosive device. We don’t know if it was a flash bang, military grae firecracker or something else,” the 021 portal reported him as saying.

He said the students were there to prevent anyone from entering the building when the masked men tried to force their way in. One of the students got a blow to the leg and another had his phone broken as he was being hit. “A policeman was there trying to stop them from assaulting us,” another STAV activist said.

The police identified the students but not the masked men, another student activist said.

They said that two young men stood across the street carrying a banner which said STAV Ustashe (WW 2 Croatian fascists who operated death camps for Serbs) but that the police ignored them.