We, the undersigned civil society organisations and media representatives, strongly condemn hate speech directed towards N1 TV and Nova S by Members of Parliament at the session of the National Assembly of Serbia on Wednesday, December 2.

MP Biljana Pantić Pilja marked in her speech these two cable televisions as ‘anti-Serbian’ and that words ‘foreign mercenary, domestic traitor’ can be used to describe them.

This is only one in a series of actions making the National Assembly a polygon for the placement of unfounded allegations against and attacks at independent media, prominent individuals and all those who are critical towards the Serbian society of today, instead of being an exemplary place for open and tolerant debate about the most important issues in the lives of Serbian citizens.

Earlier absence of condemning the hate speech produced by governing parties’ MPs – the targets of such hate speech being prominent public figures like Jelisaveta Seka Sablić, threatens to ‘normalise’ this sort of speech and make it socially acceptable. This way, Serbia is taking a shortcut to extremely intolerant and polarized society with unforeseeable consequences.

Bear in mind that all of this is happening on the day when members of the Working Group for designing the Action Plan for the Strategy for the Development of Public Information System in the Republic of Serbia for the period 2020-2025 handed this document to Prime Minister Ana Brnabić, who announced the setting up of a new working group for the safety and protection of journalists, stressing that journalists’ safety is a red line which the Government of Serbia will not tolerate.

For this reason, we call on the National Assembly of Serbia, and in particular Ivica Dačić as its President, Prime Minister and representatives of parliamentary parties to condemn hate speech of their MPs and persistently work on promoting the culture of dialogue at the Parliament as the highest representative body.

Signatories:

  1. Online Media Association
  2. Belgrade Centre for Security Policy
  3. Belgrade Centre for Human Rights
  4. Bureau for Social Research
  5. Business Info Group
  6. CANVAS
  7. European Policy Centre
  8. Policy Centre
  9. Rule of Law Centre
  10. European Movement in Serbia
  11. Humanitarian Law Centre
  12. Civic Initiatives
  13. Helsinki Committee for Human Rights
  14. Youth Initiative for Human Rights
  15. Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights
  16. KRIK
  17. National Coalition for Decentralization
  18. Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia
  19. Protekta
  20. Vojvodina Civic Centre