Hate speech, insults and threats targeting individuals and endangering their safety, whether it refers to the journalist Tamara Skroza or Prime Minister Miloš Vučević, attacks potentially motivated by national and religious hatred, as well as inappropriate and humiliating comments that become harsher day by day and more brutal on social networks and in the media, are to be strongly condemned. Recent examples of prohibited behavior can lead to unforeseeable consequences. I believe that no one in Serbia wants that, emphasizes Brankica Janković, Commissioner for the Protection of Equality.

Janković expresses concern about the increasing number of individual incidents that we have witnessed in the past period because they can affect all social relations and contribute to the deepening of divisions, leading to harmful tensions and the generation of various types of violence.

In our society, the atmosphere of intolerance has been lasting for a long time, as the institution of the Commissioner has repeatedly warned about. Any verbal and/or physical attack on another person on any basis is absolutely unacceptable and must be publicly condemned and prosecuted. Insulting dissenters, giving unfounded interpretations and accusations, misunderstanding, and lack of reasoned discussion have an impact on all citizens of the Republic of Serbia, regardless of their political, religious beliefs or other real or assumed personal characteristics. If there is no response to inappropriate rhetoric and violence, public space will be filled with offensive and threatening content that incites fear and creates a hostile environment for many individuals and entire groups of people, adds the Commissioner.

The Constitution and laws guarantee that all citizens of our country have equal rights and equality before the law, and non-discrimination is a basic principle of democratic societies and a civilizational value that must be preserved. After all, injustice and “selective” justice endanger all human beings, and everything that appears in the public space must have a special weight because it is easy to provoke people’s fears and stereotypes or incite prejudices with words and images, and at worst, encourage endangering of someone’s rights, including security, or call for or want the death of anyone, concludes the Commissioner.