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Serbs Take to Balconies in Protest Against Curfew 

Serbs Take to Balconies in Protest Against Curfew 

(Bloomberg) --

For two nights in a row, tens of thousands of Serbs banged pots and pans from their balconies, demonstrating their rising discontent with a curfew and other coronavirus-related restrictions imposed by President Aleksandar Vucic.

Such protests have worked in the past.

In the late 1990s, they voiced their discontent with late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who led the nation into a war with most of its neighbors. He was ousted in 2000, months after NATO drove out Serb forces from Kosovo.

The slogan “Down with the thieves!” echoed across residential areas of Belgrade and more than two dozen other cities late Monday.

Confined to their homes, protesters accuse Vucic of going too far in the Balkan nation’s response to Covid-19. The government declared state of emergency in mid-March, expanding its authority to restrict movement and tighten control over institutions in measures fashioned after China’s response to the pandemic. The curfew is among Europe’s toughest.

So far, Serbia has reported 8,275 infections and 162 dead.

Several hundred people also protested Monday in Slovenia, another ex-Yugoslav state that’s now part of the European Union. It was the first anti-government protest against Premier Janez Jansa, a veteran politician who returned to power last month as the pandemic spread.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.