The Youth Initiative for Human Rights strongly condemns the new heinous sexist threats of rape which Vojislav Seselj has made on Twitter against Brankica Jankovic, the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality of the Republic of Serbia.
Jankovic was chosen as a new target because she was the only state institution representative to condemn the sexist threats and insults that convicted war criminal Vojislav Seselj directed at Danas daily newspaper Danas journalist Snežana Čongradin. On this occasion the Commissioner also called on the authorities to urgently determine who stands behind the attack on the editor of the portal kolubarska.rs Darija Ranković.
Reminding that during yesterday’s session of the National Assembly, Vjerica Radeta, labeled all individuals and organizations who condemned the threats made to journalist Snezana Congradin as hooligans and traitors who are guilty of leading anti-state and anti-Serbian politics.
On the same day, the UN Security Council discussed a new six-month report by the prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (IRMCT) Serge Brammertz, which states that the arrest of Vjerica Radeta and Petar Jojic is a priority of the Mechanism. Prosecutor Brammertz also recalled in his report that on May 13 this year an international arrest warrant was issued for the arrest, transfer and detention of MPs Radeta and Jojic. Radeta and Jojic, SRS officials and members of parliament were charged with contempt of court, by intimidating, threatening and offered bribes to witnesses in the case against SRS President Vojislav Seselj.
Commenting on Brammertz’s report, Minister for Justice Nela Kuburovic said that the attitude of the prosecutor, according to which Serbia’s progress in Euro-integration should be conditioned by co-operation with the Mechanism, seeps into the political context of Serbia’s cooperation with the EU, where legal arguments are replaced by political ones. In addition, Minister Kuburović stated that the data the prosecutor presented about the displacement of the population from Kosovo, serve as propaganda that had justified the bombing of the Republic of Serbia, exactly 20 years ago, without any reason and without the decision of the UN Security Council . This statement by Minister Kuburovic confirms the statement by the Prosecutor Brammertz that the denial of war crimes and genocide, as well as the glorification of war criminals, have dominated the region in the last few years.
The actions of Minister Kuburovic at the UN Security Council, the loud silence of the entire Serbian government led by Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, as well as Zorana Mihajlovic and Rasim Ljajic (who were targets of Seselj’s threats) on the insults and threats against women in the public sphere who dared to name violence as violence and genocide as genocide, present the tail wind of the sexist and criminal rampage of Vojislav Seselj and the Serbian Radical Party, which seems never to be over.
The call for the rape of Brankica Jankovic is the worst and most recent evidence that the conviction of Seselj’s speech must come urgently from those who once glorified him, and that the termination of the parliamentary mandate of Vojislav Seselj, as well as the prosecution of Vjerica Radeta and Petar Jojic are not only their moral duty but a legal obligation.
