Category: Violence against citizens
Period: from 28 Apr 2025
Outcome: Complaint dismissed or proceedings halted (as of 19 Nov 2025)
On 28 April 2025, Patrik Drid, dean of the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education in Novi Sad, called the police to break up a student blockade. Police, a riot unit and the gendarmerie then hit the crowd with shields and batons and sprayed them with tear gas, Beta and Nova report. A female student whom a police officer struck on the head with a shield was diagnosed with a concussion, the 021 portal reported. An activist filed a complaint against Gendarmerie officer Dejan Obrenović, who, according to the daily Danas, pulled him by the hair. Prosecutors dismissed the complaint, and Obrenović later became commander of the unit.
On 28 April 2025, dean Drid tried to enter the building and break up the student blockade, and he admitted to N1 that he had called the police. According to the 021 portal, he returned accompanied by plainclothes police officers, among them the deputy chief of the Novi Sad Police Department. Police, a riot unit and the gendarmerie hit the crowd with shields and batons and sprayed them with tear gas, Beta and Nova report.
A student from the Faculty of Agriculture lost consciousness after a police officer struck her on the head with a shield, and she was diagnosed with a concussion, the 021 portal reported. A police officer threw Smiljana Milinkov, a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, to the ground.
According to the daily Danas, Obrenović, then head of the Security and Legality Section of the Gendarmerie's Novi Sad unit and one of the commanders of the operation, dragged an activist by the hair outside DIF as the activist was moving away and offering no resistance, which can be seen on video. The activist filed a complaint against him for ill-treatment and torture.
Prosecutors dismissed the complaint, and in November 2025 Obrenović became commander of the Gendarmerie's Novi Sad unit.
That same evening, Veljko Petrović, a student at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, was arrested, accused of striking the dean on the arm with his hand; his lawyer says there was no physical contact, as the footage shows. The next day the court released him to await trial at liberty, with a ban on approaching Drid. According to Nedeljnik, President Aleksandar Vučić then apologised to the dean and criticised the prosecution and the court.
In July 2026, the Higher Court in Novi Sad acquitted Petrović at first instance; the prosecutor had sought 12 months of house arrest and 100,000 dinars in damages for Drid.
In 2026, the election council of the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education (DIF), chaired by Drid, did not re-elect assistant professors Mladen Mikić and Jovan Vuković, even though the review committees had recommended their appointment. According to colleagues, they lost their jobs on 5 October. Drid says the council took the decision by a two-thirds majority and that the two had not produced results. In October, the faculty council elected him to another term.
On 28 October 2026, seven DIF professors called for the Teaching and Academic Council to hold a vote of confidence in Drid, saying that the blockade had been followed by a systematic settling of scores with teachers who had backed the students. The session set for 29 October was postponed because council members, according to an email from the dean's office, do not feel safe. Drid told RTV he will not resign.