Category: Violence against citizens
Period: from 26 Aug 2025
Outcome: No one investigated (as of 16 Oct 2025)
On 26 August 2025, the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad threw students staging a blockade out of the building and called the police, who stayed there until 8 September. On 27 August and 5 September, the Gendarmerie and an intervention unit of the Interior Ministry beat people gathered outside the faculty and dispersed them with tear gas. According to Insajder, the prosecution did not investigate the claims about CN gas, and instead sent the case on to be examined as causing panic. About 60 professors are suing the Interior Ministry over the police presence on campus, and the dean testified for the ministry in that case.
On 26 August 2025, dean Milivoj Alanović entered the building with several teachers and staff, threw out the students who had been blockading it since December and changed the locks. The same day he called the police; minister Ivica Dačić said they would stay outside the faculty for as long as the dean asked. Over the following days, several dozen police officers were constantly inside and outside the building and would not let in students or some of the staff.
The dean says the students broke into the student affairs office and that staff felt threatened, and he told N1 he had not asked for an inquiry into whether the police used excessive force. The police left the building on 8 September.
On the evening of 27 August, according to the Beta news agency, gendarmerie officers beat people gathered outside the faculty, threw them to the ground and pepper-sprayed them in the eyes. The Interior Ministry said three people had been arrested on suspicion of attacking the police.
At a large protest on 5 September, after the Interior Ministry warned that those gathered intended to attack the police, the riot police and the gendarmerie charged towards the faculty with stun grenades and tear gas, according to the daily Danas. Before that, demonstrators had poured liquid on police officers and thrown pyrotechnics. Tear gas was also fired into the building of the Faculty of Sciences, where a first aid station had been set up.
Students at the Faculty of Sciences said laboratory analyses had established that CN gas was used on campus on 5 September. The Interior Ministry said it does not possess such an agent and uses only CS, and called the claims an attempt to cause panic; an N1 reporter says she found canisters marked CN and CS at the scene.
According to Insajder, the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office in Novi Sad did not investigate the use of the gas, and instead forwarded the case to the high-tech crime prosecutor to examine it as causing panic and disorder.
On 28 October 2025, about 60 professors of the University of Novi Sad sued the Interior Ministry before the Basic Court in Novi Sad because police had been on campus from the end of August until 1 October 2025; they are seeking a symbolic 17,000 dinars.
At the first hearing, in May 2026, dean Alanović, a witness proposed by the Interior Ministry, said autonomy had not been violated. At the second, in September, the dean of the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, Patrik Drid, also testified, and professor Smiljana Milinkov said the ministry had not submitted a single piece of evidence for why the police were on campus for almost 40 days. The next hearing is scheduled for 21 December.