“Will the students soon be responsible for the fall of the canopy?”: Academics reacted to VJT’s allegations that they planned to simulate a sound cannon – Society

“VJT suspects that the students planned a simulation of the sound cannon. And soon it will be that the students are also responsible for the fall of the canopy? For the waiting lists in healthcare?

For the corruption that ate the institutions? For kidnappings, beating minors, beating students? For party employment? For young people leaving the country? “Someone’s chair is seriously shaking,” the medical students in the blockade said via an account on the X social network.

VJT suspects that the students planned to simulate a sound cannon.

And soon it will be that the students are also responsible for the fall of the canopy?

For waiting lists in healthcare?

For the corruption that ate the institutions?

For kidnappings, beating minors, beating students?

For the party…

— MFUBlokadi (@Blokada_Mfub) June 19, 2026

As announced by VJT, during the search of the Faculty of Philosophy on March 27, 2026, the documentation of the plenum of several faculties was temporarily confiscated, in which the minutes of the meeting of the “Students in Blockade” organization – the umbrella working group for security, held on January 22, 2025, were found.

According to the prosecutor’s office, at that meeting, among other things, the “sound cannon” was discussed, and the minutes recorded claims that the use of such a device would cause a “massive response from Brussels”, as well as a reference to the practice in China of people moving off the road when they see a “sound cannon”.

VJT states that there are grounds for suspicion that the participants of that meeting and other unknown persons in the following period undertook activities with the aim of simulating the use of a “sound cannon” by state authorities at the protest in Belgrade on March 15, 2025.

The students in the blockade reacted to these allegations, and we are transmitting their statement in its entirety:

“The latest attempt by the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office to find evidence of a premeditated ‘sound cannon simulation’ in student meetings is another lie and a distraction from the essential issue: what happened on March 15 and what caused the chaos among the gathered citizens.”

The document referred to by the Prosecution was created two months before the protest on March 15, at a time when that rally had not yet been planned. It is about the material from the meeting for the protest at Autokomanda, in which various security risks and possible forms of police intervention against peaceful citizens and students who spend 24 hours at Autokomanda were discussed.

In this context, sound cannons, water cannons, tear gas and other means of coercion were also mentioned as potential risks. Consideration of the repression scenario is solely evidence of a responsible approach to the security of protest participants. This is what we did before every protest, not the competent authorities and the government.

It is especially absurd to claim that mentioning the reactions of European institutions or the consequences of the possible use of the sound cannon constitutes evidence of a conspiracy. This, in fact, clearly shows that the sound cannon was viewed exclusively as an example of the use of excessive force by state authorities, because it was known from 2022 that the state had prohibited weapons at its disposal, and in the context of the possible political consequences of such behavior.

Instead of answering the questions that citizens have been asking for more than a year, the Prosecutor’s Office is trying to present the conversation about the possible use of coercive means as evidence of their directing.

We remind you that after the event of March 15, numerous checks were launched, that citizens were questioned and that the institutions themselves admitted that an unusual event had occurred that caused mass panic, running and sudden separation of people in Kralja Milana Street, and then health problems.

The students will not agree to be declared guilty because, while preparing the peaceful protests, they considered the risks to which the participants could be exposed. If mentioning the possible use of force became evidence of guilt, then the problem is much bigger than a single record.

“Citizens of Serbia deserve the truth about the events of March 15, and not a new attempt to shift the responsibility to those who protested peacefully and non-violently for months,” the Students in Blockade statement reads.