Violation of the rights to life and Human dignity

December 24, 2003

A leading politician, second on the candidate list of a party running in the upcoming elections, has on a number of occasions confirmed that he does not regret that publisher and journalist Slavko Ćuruvija was assassinated and that he feels no remorse that Ćuruvija was killed at the time his party was in power. As is well known, Slavko Ćuruvija was killed at the door of the building in which he lived in 1999. No light has been shed on his assassination yet but there is reasonable doubt that he was killed by the members of the then State Security. It is incomprehensible and inhuman for any political figure in a state  aspiring to be democratic to support the murder of another human being. No sin can justify anyone’s underhanded murder, a death sentence pronounced outside the court. All this is unimaginable in the civilisation we desire to be part of.   

Such statements bring into question the right of the citizens of Serbia to life, the right of the families and friends of murder victims to defend their dignity and the right of Serbia’s public to be spared further political assassinations and protected from forces openly or tacitly threatening with such murders.