Vučić rejects Belgrade protest as a western 'imported revolution'

Farmers and bikers converge on Serbian capital for student-led demonstration against autocratic regime

- Julian Borger

A vast demonstration gathered yesterday in Belgrade, marking the climax of more than four months of student-led protests and the biggest challenge to President Aleksandar Vučić in the 11 years of his increasingly autocratic rule.

Vučić stoked tensions in the run-up to yesterday's mass protest, suggesting there would be an attempt to overthrow him by force and calling it an "imported revolution" with the involvement of western intelligence agencies, but he provided no evidence for the claims. The demonstrations against government corruption and incompetence have so far been overwhelmingly peaceful.

Hundreds of government supporters, mostly black-clad young men wearing baseball caps, many with matching black backpacks, gathered in Belgrade’s Pionirski Park, opposite the Serbian parliament, one of the focal points of the demonstration. Local reports suggested there were members of organised football hooligan groups among them, as well as veterans of the Red Berets special forces unit implicated in the 2003 assassination of Serbia's liberal prime minister Zoran Djindjić.