The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights calls on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and all other state bodies to fully investigate and punish the perpetrators of the horrendous murder of the Roma boy in the Belgrade suburb of Boljevci. Unfortunately, this is not the first time such a crime has been committed in Belgrade or in other parts of Serbia. The police and judiciary are prone to qualifying such crimes as juvenile delinquency, motivated by the perpetrators’ desire to rob the victim or their wantonness.We fear other motives lie behind such crimes. They need not necessarily be linked to the ethnic origin of the victims, although these grounds probably play an important role as well. It is of utmost priority to investigate why minors are killing their co-evals, massacring them for a few hundred Euros. Why is it so easy to take someone’s life and risk decades-long imprisonment in Serbia? Why are young people so attracted by ideologies of racial domination, ultra-right movements and violence as the method for resolving conflicts? Why, as opposed to the vast majority of their co-evals across Europe, do they opt for living in isolation, seeing the world and all those who differ from them as enemies? Unfortunately, the legacy of the nineties and Serbia’s failure to radically reform its value system have apparently led a large number of young people, who see no clear and bright future for themselves or a chance to make something out of their lives in this society, to vent their frustrations in this way.
The crime occurred only two days before the celebration of the school holiday St. Sava. Judging by the age of the suspected minors, they are probably attending high school. They are probably attending religious instruction or civic education classes. But, they obviously have not learned anything there. True, the state and the schools are not omnipotent, but they are nevertheless important. As are the examples we set young people. This is why issues like the prosecution and punishment of war crime indictees and confrontation with the violent past are so important, why the responsibility of those participating in these endeavours is enormous. Otherwise, criminal responsibility will rest only the individuals who committed the crime in Boljevci. But all of us together will bear responsibility for their fate and the climate in which such crimes are possible.
