Students participating in the blockade announced on social media that tomorrow, November 11, they will organize a “warning protest” at 11 a.m. near the General Staff building.
The brief announcement does not specify the official reason for the protest, which is titled “We Are a Living Wall.”
The students will gather at four locations across the city before meeting at the corner of Kneza Miloša and Nemanjina streets.
The group starting from the Faculty of Agriculture will begin their march at 9 a.m. Two groups, one gathering at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and the other at Trg Republike, will proceed to the protest site at 10 a.m., while the group starting from Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra will begin marching at 10:15 a.m.
On Friday, November 7, the law on special procedures for the implementation of the project for the revitalization and development of the site in Belgrade—between Kneza Miloša, Masarikova, Birčaninova, and Resavska streets, namely the General Staff complex damaged during NATO bombing in 1999—was adopted.
This “lex specialis” law provides for the demolition of the damaged buildings in central Belgrade and, as previously reported by the media, the construction of a luxury hotel.
The company interested in the project is Affinity Global Development, headed by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump.
Last year, then-Minister of Construction, Transport, and Infrastructure Goran Vesić signed a contract on behalf of the Government of Serbia regarding the revitalization of the General Staff complex. However, the public was not given access to the contract’s provisions, despite announcements that it included the leasing of the land for 99 years.
