Anti-Government Protests in Serbia from a Minority Perspective: Between Activism and Lived Experiences

Citizens with minority backgrounds face many difficulties and challenges regarding political participation in Serbia. Consequently, different minorities have a relatively muted voice in Serbian politics and society. For example, in recent years, the members of the Albanian national minority in southern Serbia have reported a pattern in which authorities have marked their addresses as “inactive” in official databases, meaning they cannot renew their identity documents needed to vote (Freedom House report 2025). Research also shows the problematic method of elections to the national councils of national minorities, and dubious use of ethnic data to create minority policies and implement minority rights, especially participatory ones in Serbia, together with the politization of these councils (Surová, 2023, 2021, 2020 and 2019). Thus, scientific literature focuses more on constitutional and institutional mechanisms of minority political participation, namely electoral, while protesting activities are overlooked or ignored. In Serbia, students and citizens have been organizing large-scale, ongoing protests throughout the country since November 2024, after the Novi Sad tragedy, which killed sixteen people when a railway station roof collapsed. The demonstrators are demanding justice for the victims, accountability for corruption and early elections. The national minorities' members also participate in the protests, particularly the members of the Slovak national minority and Novi Pazar students, where predominantly members of the Bosniak national minority live. This study examines the anti-governmental protests in Serbia from a minority perspective. Contemporary anti-governmental activism of members of the Slovak and Bosniak national minorities is investigated by asking who, how and why participates in anti-governmental protests. As well, the study scrutinizes how minority activism is linked to the lived experiences of protestors by applying an intersectional approach. Meaning that it looks into how multiple and various identities of protestors, such as gender, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality and class, create unique experiences, namely of discrimination and inequality for them in Serbia and how these lived experiences inform their protesting activities.