President Aleksandar Vucic announced on Tuesday that a new curfew would go into effect on Friday and last over the weekend, after 300 new Covid-19 cases and 13 deaths – the most since the pandemic began, local media reported.

This prompted an estimated ten thousand people to gather outside the parliament building and demand Vucic’s resignation, starting around 10 pm local time.

After some demonstrators reportedly broke into the building, riot police were deployed and used force to disperse the crowd, including tear gas. At one point, police on horseback charged the demonstrators.

Opposition politicians tried to direct the protests into a revolution against the government, urging all of Serbia to “go to Belgrade, now or never!” and telling people to “seize their freedom.” 

Former foreign minister Vuk Jeremic appeared among the demonstrators at one point, before he was told to “go away” and received a slap upside the head.

The protest may have started over Covid-19 restrictions, but its participants appeared to be motivated in part by frustration with Serbia’s politics, often denouncing Vucic as a “NATO lackey” and his government as a “colony.”

Journalist Boris Malagurski, who has been critical of the government, posted a photo of the protest with the caption “Serbia has risen.”

Many of the protesters were young. One young man told reporters he was there because his father died of the virus due to lack of ventilators. An older man, with blood flowing down his face, said he was a father of two fighting for a better future for his children – possibly a comment on “For our children,” the ruling Progressive party’s slogan in last month’s parliamentary election.