Entrance area near the National Assembly in Belgrade, where the Ćacilend camp has been stationed since March 2025. Photo- FoNet. Hrka carried out her hunger strike in front of a camp of ruling party supporters, known as“Ćacilend”, which has stood outside the National Assembly of Serbia since March. Members of the ruling party and pro-government media initially responded harshly, insulting Hrka and playing music at her from within“Ćacilend”. This provoked outrage among parts of the public and sparked a series of gatherings in support of Hrka, one of which included people throwing objects at each other from both sides of the camp. Several days later, the ruling party shifted its tone: personal attacks on Hrka stopped, and President Aleksandar Vučić publicly called on her to end her hunger strike. On 17 November, Hrka announced that she would end the strike but would remain in a tent in front of the National Assembly. On 5 November, the investigative journalism network KRIK published a database of individuals seen in“Ćacilend” camp(named after the nickname“ćaci” that the student movement gave to the ruling party supporters). According to KRIK’s database, at least 16 people who had been charged with or convicted of serious crimes – including murder – had been seen at the camp in recent months. Aerial view of the commemorative protest in Novi Sad, 1 November 2025. Photo- Arhiv javnih skupova/ Facebook. The camp was originally set up in front of the Presidency by students close to the ruling party who opposed the then-ongoing university blockades. However, not only was the camp not removed once the blockades ended, it expanded to the area in front of the National Assembly, permanently blocking one of the main streets in the city center. The ruling party has not explained why it maintains the camp after the blockades ended. Public interpretations mostly point to the party’s unwillingness to cede the space in front of the parliament, where future protests could take place. Tensions around“Ćacilend” escalated again in the last week of November, when opposition MPs demanded free access to the parliament through the front entrance, claiming it was obstructed by the camp. On 26 November, they removed one of the fences and walked to the entrance of the parliament, where they were assaulted and verbally attacked by a group of ruling party supporters, with the situation coming close to physical violence. In the days following the incident, MPs continued to enter the parliament through the same route, where they were routinely jeered and, in some cases, even threatened by people in“Ćacilend”. Mounting opposition to the construction project of Jared Kushner’s company On 7 November, the ruling majority adopted a special law(“lex specialis”) that allows the demolition of the Army General Staff Building in Belgrade, a prominent architectural landmark. The General Staff was heavily damaged during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and, in the 2000s, it was declared a cultural landmark by the Government of Serbia. That status has now been repealed. The area around the General Staff Building, according to a contract which was signed non-transparently in 2024, will be leased to an investment company Atlantic Incubation Partners LLC led by Jared Kushner, the son-in­law of American President Donald Trump. The company is supposed to build an apartment complex, luxury hotels and a small memorial to the NATO bombing on the site. The ruling party members lauded the deal as a way of “improving the relations between Serbia and the United States” and as an economic opportunity for the country. The plan triggered strong negative reactions from large parts of the public, with many arguing that the General Staff Building should be renovated rather than demolished. A more nationalist segment of the opposition criticized the symbolic implications of awarding the project to a company from the United States. The parliamentary opposition, as well as the student movement, voiced their objections to the plan, and opposition parties filed Tensions in Serbia Continues as the Government Struggles With Us Sanctions and Resorts to Violence in Local Elections 2