A 21-year-old college student was brutally beaten and forced to endure sexual molestation with a billy club.

For this student’s pain and suffering he was awarded a 25-day prison term.

This nightmare became reality for Dejan Bulatovic, one of tens of thousands of students at the University of Belgrade in Serbia who are protesting against their government.

Bulatovic was arrested by Belgrade city police officers earlier this month while walking home alone from one of a multitudes of day-long student protests that have blanketed the infant country this month.

Students are protesting the Serbian government’s annulment of local November elections, in which the United Opposition Party won key races in the main cities and university towns of Serbia.

Bulatovic was guilty of carrying a dummy dressed in a convict’s uniform of the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, through the streets of his city. Police believed his actions warranted such a beating, others say he was exercising a basic freedom to protest against government.

At the University of Belgrade and universities across Serbia, students have taken to the streets to protest the socialist-dominated government.

Between 30,000 and 40,000 Belgrade students have turned out every day for more than three weeks to protest.

An ISU connection

When a group of Iowa State students and one professor, all from Serbia, asked what they could do to support their fellow students in Belgrade, the response from home was: “To be our voice.”

About 10 group members write an e-mail message of support to the protesters every day. Disapproving e-mails are also sent to the Serbian government. The students and the professor, isolated from their friends and former colleagues, share their stories with each other.

A nation waking up

“A Serbia nation is waking up from a demagogue and finding its soul again,” said Nenad Kostic, professor of chemistry at ISU. “The leaders of this reawakening are obviously the students, the youth, the future of the country.”

Students in Belgrade and other Serbian cities including Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Nis, Cacak, Uzice are demanding the government reinstate the election results.

“The government has the courts under its thumb and the courts, both the lower and the Supreme, have annulled the first elections,” Kostic said.

A second election was held, but only 20 percent of the population turned out to vote, compared to the 65 percent who voted in the first election.

Through rain, sleet and snow

“From noon until evening [the students protest]. The weather is turning cold, snowy and rainy. They’re very spirited in their work. They protest the stolen election,” Kostic said. “Their protest is for a principle, not for the United Opposition [Party], per se.”

Five Serbians at ISU were students at the University of Belgrade during a 1992 protest in which students demonstrated in support of Milosevic’s then opponent, who lost the election.

Kostic said the students are using several forms of demonstration, including barraging government buildings with paper airplanes, throwing red paint at the office of President Milosevic and unloading “newspaper trash” on the steps of the state news service to protest the organizations’ refusal to cover the student demonstrations.

“They pelt with eggs the building of the state-run television because it doesn’t broadcast the protests,” Kostic said. “Students carry candles and light them in mourning for the death of justice,” Kostic said.

Students also erected a brick wall in front of the National Assembly Building with a message that read: “We want to build, not tear down.”

“They did that because the media said they [the students] would destroy Belgrade during the protests,” said Milan Crnogorac, a Serbian doctoral student in chemistry.

Independent media shut down

Kostic said the Serbian government has shut down the independent radio stations in Belgrade in an attempt to muzzle the uprising. International stations such as the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe have since been broadcasting into Serbia.

“It is much more effective because people in my own town, which is far from Belgrade, can hear the Voice of America broadcasts,” said Sasu Stankovic, also a Serbian doctoral student in chemistry.

Kostic said it is ironic, because he, living in Ames, is more informed about the protests than the majority of citizens in Serbia.

Tatjana Parac, another Serbian doctoral student in chemistry, has a sister participating in the protest. She said now is a “tough” time to be in Ames when her country’s in turmoil.

“If we were in Belgrade we would be on the streets every day,” she said. Her sister, whom Parac keeps in contact with, told her there is a feeling of togetherness and hope that the students really can accomplish something. This spirit keeps the students on the streets for up to 10 hours a day, she said.

“These students are really in a precarious position, especially when the chancellor of Belgrade University is a tool of President Milosevic,” Kostic said.

Appealing for worldwide support

Students in Belgrade are using the Internet to send their messages to the rest of the world. ISU’s Serbian students regularly read the Internet homepage the Belgrade students have set up.

Despite a persistent faith, the students say no one knows where the protests will lead.

“It’s uncertain. The demonstrators are determined, but the government is cunning,” Kostic said. “I think the outcome of the protest depends on the support they get from the outside world. And it depends on the strength of the pressure applied to Milosevic by other governments, especially the U.S.”

Kostic said ISU students can get involved by supporting the Serbian protest through e-mail letters, and by passing a support resolution through the Government of the Student Body.

The address of the Belgrade students’ homepage is: http://galeb.etf.bg.ac.yu/~protest96/.

“That show of support will boost the moral of the protesters and give them strength to endure in the cold days and weeks ahead,” he said.

— The Associated Press

contributed to this report.