Serbian Protesters Challenge Govt in Poster War

Protesters against the rule of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic - angered by the decision of the Belgrade city authorities last week to remove stickers reading "Vucic's lies" immediately after a rally - pasted thousands of new stickers along the route of Saturday's rally.

The stickers quoted Vucic's unfulfilled promises.

On reaching Terazije tunnel in the centre of Belgrade, which protesters have symbolically nicknamed the "Tunnel of Aleksandar Vucic's Lies", demonstrators found the walls covered in a black substance that prevented their stickers from staying glued. It is not clear who is behind the paint.

At the last anti-government march, held on February 23, protesters put up posters in the same tunnel listing what they said were Vucic's false claims and failed promises.

Immediately after the protest march ended, the city sent sanitation workers to the area to tear the posters down.

Some of the protesters who were still in the tunnel chased them off.

The Belgrade city authorities then accused these protesters of violence and of attacking municipal workers, although videos from the event do not bear out claims of physical attacks.

After Serbia's Interior Ministry said the incident would be investigated, opposition leaders responded that the whole city would be covered with stickers in time for the next protest.

At Saturday's protest, meanwhile, a keynote speaker was Marija Lukic, who claims she was the victim of a sexual assault by the Mayor of Brus, a town in central Serbia.

Lukic and several other women from Brus have accused Mayor Milutin Jelicic "Jutka" of sexual harassment. He has denied the claims, but announced that he will resign. The court case, which started in February, is still ongoing.