Serbia: Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco attacked for challenging impunity

“Whore, bitch, if Kosovo becomes independent we will cut you and that man in B92 (radio) and all those faggots...”. This is just one of the threats received by Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco for challenging the culture of impunity in Serbia.

Further Information

Posted 23/10/2008 Biljana Kovacevic is Director of YUCOM, founded in Belgrade in 1997, to promote the idea of the rule of law and uphold human rights in Serbia. For YUCOM this also means confronting the past and demanding that perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity,who walk freely around Belgrade, are brought to justice. As a result she has been insulted, attacked in the street and vilified by sections of the government and the media.

She is not alone in this. Sonja Biserko of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights and Natasha Kandic of the Humanitarian Law Center as well as many other human rights defenders, including Women in Black, have also been targeted.

In Serbia today, if you campaign for accountability for abuses from the past, for gay or women’s rights or if, as a journalist, you write about the links between government and organised crime then you quite literally put your life on the line.

“We are safe only so long as we are protected by the international community”. BK

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