Monument to Jasa Tomic, an Intolerable Act

Press Release

Belgrade, November 10, 2006

The fact that the monument to Jasa Tomic was unveiled in downtown Novi Sad yesterday, on the very International Day against Fascism and Anti-Semitism, indicates by far more than stand for yet another in the series of incidents that besmear the recognized values of the democratic world and stain Vojvodina's civic identity.

Yesterday's act whereby the Novi Sad Radicals paid homage to a pronounced anti-Semite and murderer of liberal intellectual Misa Dimitrijevic actually mirrors the tendency regretfully perceived in today's Serbia as legitimate and permissible: glorification of crime and obscurantism on the one hand, and negation of free thought on the other.

The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, therefore, once again warns that restoration of the most conservative ideological programs is in full swing in Serbia. Moreover, this is all about the threatening trend that speedily moves Serbia back to her worst past at the time she, according to creators of her newest constitution, speedily moves towards Europe and attempts to catch up with global integration processes.