Serbian Citizens Respond to Violence

On October 2, 2009, citizens from across Belgrade gathered in Pioneers Park to protest growing human rights violations, violence, murder, and safety threats in Serbian society.  Despite an earlier police ban on the gathering, "Citizens' Response to Violence" organizers LiNet, Civil Rights Defenders, Centre for Cultural Decontamination, and RBF grantee Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR) were granted a permit on October 1 for the event that would coincide with the UN International Day of Non-Violence. During the opening, organizers read five requests by some 80 nongovernmental organizations, urging government authorities to take responsibility and action. Numerous public figures—from actor Branko Cvejic and director Gorcin Stojanovic to Ruzica Ðindic, politician and widow of the assassinated Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Ðindic—came out to support the action.

The event follows YIHR's lengthy efforts to pass Serbia's first ruling against hate speech, as prohibited under the Public Information Act. YIHR filed a lawsuit with the First Municipal Court in Belgrade after an advertisement containing hostile language from "Exiled Serbs" calling for the illegal boycott of the Croatian chain store IDEA appeared in the daily Belgrade newspaper Glas Javnosti (Voice of the Public) in March 2006.  In September 2008, the Court adopted YIHR's claim and passed the ruling, and in June 2009 Glas Javnosti published the entire ruling as ordered by the court, free of charge.