Women In Black Mark the International Day of the Human Rights

Although they regularly announced their gathering on the occasion of the International Day of the Human Rights, December 10, the Women in Black were informed by the authorities that their street protest, planned to be held in front of the Parliaments of Serbia and SCG was not permitted. Therefore, all planned activities will take place on December 9, on the Republic Square in Belgrade, starting at 11:00 hours. Women in Black logo The peaceful actions, “Not in our name”, “No woman, no man, no money for militarism” were planned for December 9, 2004. However, as Stasa Zajovic says for OW SEE, they were “told, without quotes of the positive legislation that was used as basis for such a decision, that we don’t have official permission to hold the gathering. Obviously, our authorities don’t like our demands. And all of this is happening on the eve of the International Day of the Human Rights. What we have here is political confrontation with everybody that holds opinions contrary to that of the government.” In addition to Women In Black, several other NGOs: Labris, Women Studies, Food of Solidarity, the Stani-Pani Collective, Humanitarian Law Centre, YUCOM, have presented joint demands to the Serbian authorities. They demand for an efficient parliamentary and civilian control over the armed forces to be established; elimination of all remains of Milosevic’s regime in the military and police structures; the move of competence for civilian army service from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry of Justice or Ministry of Social Care; the same term to be introduced for armed and civilian service; full and unconditional cooperation with the ICTY in the Hague, including the immediate arrest and extradition of all war crimes suspects; the abolition of the Law on Financial Assistance to the persons indicted in the Hague Tribunal; trials to all war crimes suspects that are not sought by the ICTY in domestic courts, with full and efficient witness protection programme; elimination from public life of all those that oppose the cooperation with the ICTY and the prosecution of war crimes suspects.

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