The Belgrade Centre for Human Rights on 7 December filed a criminal report against Topola Mayor Dragan Jovanović for committing the offence incriminated by Article 387(2) of the Criminal Code (racial and other discrimination) by interrupting the promotion of the radio show Peščanik (Hourglass) and the statements he subsequently made.Following is the text of the criminal report:
CRIMINAL REPORT
The subject of the report, Dragan Jovanović, on 3 December 2007 organised and led a group of citizens in the attempt to violently prevent the holding of a gathering – panel discussion and promotion of the show Peščanik at the Arandjelovac Culture Hall. As he himself admitted and as was corroborated in the official statement of the political party, New Serbia, the senior official of which Jovanović is, Jovanović organised the group with the intention of preventing the holding of the announced gathering and openly advocated resort to physical violence against citizens and organisations, including the authors of Peščanik, participants in the panel discussion and RTV B92.
Jovanović thus committed the offence incriminated by Article 387(2) of the Criminal Code (racial and other discrimination), the provision prohibiting and penalising “persecution of organisations or individuals for advocating the equality of people” (paragraph 2).
EXPLANATION
The subject of the report, Dragan Jovanović, is the Mayor of Topola and senior official (Deputy President) of the political party New Serbia. In his capacity of state and party official, Jovanović rallied a group of people to attend the scheduled promotion of the show Peščanik in the Arandjelovac Culture Hall and to employ physical and verbal violence to prevent the holding of the event. The scheduled promotion had all the elements of a legal public gathering. However, Jovanović and his followers, around 1,000 of them according to his allegations, prevented the holding of the gathering. The members of the group physically entered the hall where the panel discussion was to have been held and positioned themselves between the organisers, speakers and peaceful citizens awaiting the beginning of the event in the hall.
Two days after the event, Jovanović reiterated his calls for the persecution of the authors of Peščanik and RTV B92. In his official statement issued in the capacity of Topola Mayor, Jovanović said he would continue taking similar steps in the future and even called for a “rebellion”. In his statement, Jovanović says: “It gives me comfort that I’ve been declared the leader of the rebellion against B92, and, given that all uprisings have started in Šumadija, I hope that this spark of rebellion against tyrants will awaken the other communities to offer resistance as well”.
Evidence: Text of the public statement published on the official Topola Municipality website on 4 December 2007; (http://www.topola.com).
New Serbia, the party in which Jovanović holds the post of Deputy President, admitted its official had taken part in the staging of this illegal act and announced similar activities in the future, whereby it grossly abused political power and influence to create conditions for the persecution of individuals and organisations advocating human rights and equality.
Evidence: Text of the New Serbia Press Department statement “Stop the Anti-Serbian Campaign”, published on New Serbia’s official website; (http://www.nova-srbija.org.yu/index1.htm).
Three days after the interruption of the panel discussion, Jovanović continued persecuting its organisers and RTV B92 in an interview to the popular daily Politika. Jovanović again threatened to resort to violence in the interview, when he said “If B92 goes on like this, it will end up like TV Bastille” (as RTS used to be called in the nineties). After the journalist warned him that he had issued a serious threat and asked “Who are colleagues in B92 in danger of?”, Jovanović replied: “Those who think Serbia is not what Soros, Nataša Kandić, Čeda… are offering. Someone will have to say ‘enough’ one day… We have experience. Real, practical experience. I’d already set fire to one TV Bastille.”
Evidence: Interview with Dragan Jovanović, published in the daily Politika on 6 December 2007).
The BCHR calls on the prosecutor to examine the allegations in the criminal report and undertake legal action to prosecute the crime and its perpetrator and notify the BCHR thereof in detail.
Annex: Evidence 1, 2 and 3.
