The shooting, which President Aleksandar Vucic called an act of terrorism, comes after nearly a year of anti-government protests. The perpetrator called pro-government tents outside parliament an “occupation.President Vucic said the incident showed the danger anti-government protests pose and further blamed “certain media and politicians” for the shooting.
“There is no doubt that there was a political motivation behind all this,” he said. “It is a miracle that in the past 11 months we did not have any casualties.”
Vucic urged supporters to refrain from retaliation, saying, “revenge has never brought anyone any good.”
Speaking with Reuters news agency, Savo Manojlovic of the opposition Move Change party said, “The creation of an artificial camp with tents and a landfill in the city center to provoke further confrontation, hatred and division is the responsibility of the institutions that allowed such misuse.”
One of the student groups leading the anti-government protests wrote on social media Wednesday, “our path has never been a path of violence.”
