The Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, Milan Antonijević, strongly condemns calls for violence, threats, and hate speech directed at a family of Albanian nationality in Surdulica, which appeared following a tragic traffic accident in which one human life was lost.

Every tragedy requires compassion and dignity, but must not be a cause for collective condemnation or the targeting of individuals because of their nationality. The Commissioner reminds that the Constitution and laws of the Republic of Serbia prohibit discrimination, harassment, and incitement to hatred and violence based on any personal characteristic.

He warns that the public expression of messages calling for lynching, expulsion, or intimidation constitutes a serious violation of the right to equality and may endanger the safety of citizens and undermine interethnic relations.

Commissioner Antonijević called on all citizens, public figures, and the media to contribute to calming tensions and to demonstrate responsibility in the public sphere, as well as to refrain from spreading unverified information and generalizations. Institutions should establish all facts and the responsibility of individuals, and not attribute guilt to entire communities, the Commissioner concludes.

The Commissioner also condemns chants of hatred and any harassment of citizens in front of the Jewish Cultural Center, and emphasizes that antisemitism, as well as any form of religious and ethnic hatred, constitutes a serious violation of the dignity and security of members of a community and is deeply contrary to the values of equality and mutual respect on which our society is founded. The right to peaceful assembly cannot serve as a pretext for hate speech, intimidation, or incitement to hostility.