Protest outside pro-govt TV station in Belgrade

(1 Jul 2023) RESTRICTIONS SUMMARY: ASSOCIATED PRESS Belgrade, Serbia - 1 July 2023 1. Pan of protesters in front of the Serbia Parliament building 2. Various of protesters 3. EU flag 4. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Charlie (no last name given), protester: "Of course, (Aleksandar) Vucic will not say 'I will step down from my position and go to prison', but the idea is to tell our government that we won’t be silent and that we want a country with a better quality of life.” 5. Banner reading (Serbian) "Students are not silent” 6. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Slavica Milosevic, protester: "We will continue (with protests) until they fulfil our requests.” 7. Various of people matching down the street 8. Protesters carrying banner reading (Serbian) "Serbia against violence” 9. People at protest 10. Pan from TV Pink building covered in Serbian flag to the protesters in front of the building 11. Security in front of TV Pink building 12. Pan of protesters in front of TV Pink building 13. Various protesters in front of the building 14. Security in front of the entrance of TV Pink building 15. Protesters throwing toilet paper at building 16. Security in front of TV pink building STORYLINE: Thousands of people in Serbia rallied on Saturday outside a pro-government television station that protesters said promoted a culture of violence and should be stripped of a nation-wide license in the wake of two mass shootings in May that stunned the Balkan nation. Restrictive measures against Pink TV and other commercial broadcasters, as well as tabloids, are among several requests of weeks-long protests that erupted after the shootings on May 3 and 4 that left 18 people dead and 20 wounded, many of them children. The anti-government protesters have also demanded the ouster of key security officials and a media monitoring body during the past several weeks of street demonstrations, the biggest in years against Serbia's populist leader Aleksandar Vucic and his government. Vucic, a former ultranationalist who now says he wants Serbia to join the European Union but has faced accusations of imposing an increasingly autocratic rule, has dismissed the protest demands. Vucic has accused opposition leaders behind the rallies of abusing the shooting tragedies to target him. The shootings in May shocked Serbia, particularly because the first one happened in a Belgrade elementary school when a teenager took his father's gun and opened fire on his classmates. A day later a 20-year-old shot randomly at people in a rural area south of Belgrade. Vucic and his populist authorities have rejected any responsibility for the attacks. The president's opponents, however, say hate speech and intolerance fuelled by pro-government media and officials have helped foster violence in the country that went through a series of wars in the 1990s. The protest on Saturday started outside the Serbian parliament building before thousands marched toward the Pink TV building in a residential area of Belgrade that also hosts foreign embassies and residences. The protesters booed loudly in front of Pink TV, chanted slogans against Vucic and threw toilet paper at the building. Dozens of guards deployed outside the Pink TV building which was covered in a huge Serbian flag ahead of the rally. Smaller protests were also held Saturday in several towns and cities in Serbia following a blockade of the main north-south highway on Friday. =========================================================== Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...