Belgrade, September 28, 2011 - Serbian human rights organizations called, in a joint statement on September 26, on the Government of Serbia and the Ministry of Interior to uphold the Constitution and provide the conditions for the Pride Parade, scheduled to take place on October 2 in Belgrade.

The organisations add that freedom of public gathering is guaranteed by the Constitution and has to be protected from those who intend to undermine public order and security, and that “the citizens that will gather for the 2011 Pride certainly don’t fall into that category”.

The organisations (a full list of all signatories of the public statement is available on the YIHR website) say that, from the moment the Pride 2011 was announced, a number of state officials have promoted a distorted logic that places the responsibility for any eventual violence on those who are likely to be victims of the violence. In their view, such statements represent direct violations and abuse of the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Serbia, which is illegal and unconstitutional.

”We find it absolutely unacceptable for representatives of the Ministry of Interior - who are charged, in fact, with the task to protect the rights and freedoms of the citizens – to publicly stand against the Pride Parade and, therefore, against the constitutional right to public gathering”, the organisations say.

They add that the Government and the MoI can’t be exempt from their duty to uphold the Constitution and the law, and that all public officials and civil servants that advocate violations of human rights have to be held responsible and adequately sanctioned.

Minister of interior Ivica Dačić said earlier this week that the Police lacks equipment for all of its officers that will be charged with the security of the Pride, and the Independent Police Trade Union indirectly called its membership to disobey orders on the day of the Pride over the fact that they don’t have the proper equipment for the task at hand.

Trade union leader Momčilo Vidojević called on the organizers to cancel the Pride and noted that the Police had information that certain groups planned to attack the Pride but also to go on a destructive demonstration under the alleged title “Belgrade in Flames”, and that the Police can’t adequately respond to such threats.

Goran Miletić, member of the Pride organizing committee, says that some members of the police, with their statements that they won’t provide security for the Pride, try to intimidate and install fear among the citizens.

"This has now gone well beyond the Pride itself. What they say is that there are groups that are stronger and more powerful than the police and that the police can’t offer protection for the citizens of Serbia, the public order, and uphold the Law”, Miletić said.

Miljenko Dereta, executive director of the Civil Initiatives NGO, commenting on the statements by Minister Dačić, told “Blic” daily that “apparently, the international community should send us a contingent of riot-police to secure the pride”.

”Why doesn’t the minister demand from those who issued threats of violence to refrain from that? Why they weren’t dealt with already? The responsibility is constantly transferred on foreign institutions and Pride’s organizers, and they are not the ones that produce the violence”, Dereta said.

Source: One World SEE