Commissioner for Protection of Equality Brankica Jankovic attended Second International Meeting of Special Envoys and Coordinators combating anti-Semitism in Munich, which was opened by World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder.
World Jewish Congress President warned that we are lately witnessing incidents which were not evidenced in the previous two generations. He presented worrying data that as much as 44% of young Jews in Europe was a target at least once in the past one-year period.
During her speech, Commissioner Jankovic stated that our country can be proud because unlike in Europe, there is no evidence of rising anti-Semitism in Serbia and that we pay special attention to culture of anti-fascism. During our 10 years of work, we had three complaints and we approached them aware of the fact that every individual case of discrimination may have enormous consequences and become much more serious, Commissioner emphasized. Nevertheless, recognizing the importance of prevention and suppression of hate speech, especially on social media, Commissioner for Protection of Equality gave general recommendation to information web portals to monitor, control and remove impermissible comments, particularly hate speech. Majority of portals respect this recommendation, which is encouraging, Jankovic stressed. She said that a lot has been invested in prevention, but that is only an initial step and efforts aimed to suppression of hate speech and every type of discrimination will be continued, by using all available legal mechanisms. We held more than 800 different conferences, debates and workshops during the last year. Commissioner also said that it is necessary to work on education of young generations in an appealing way, in order to make them aware how important the battle against anti-Semitism and discrimination in general is.