BELGRADE, MAY 6 (ONASA-FoNet) – Women in Black and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights announced today that “the recognition of the genocide in Srebrenica and the adoption of the UN Resolution is a chance for the state and society to remove the stain from the name of Serbia in the region and the world.”
“Welcoming the intention of the majority of the members of the United Nations to pass a resolution on the genocide in Srebrenica, which, among other things, qualifies the denial of the genocidal character of that crime as a punishable offense, we remind you that since 2009 we have continuously requested the authorities in Serbia to 11 declared July as the Day of Remembrance of the Srebrenica genocide,” the announcement states.
Those two organizations remind that they also demanded that the denial of genocide be declared a criminal offense, adding that these demands were and are being supported by numerous civil society organizations from all over Serbia.
“With the arrival of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in 2012, the genocide is increasingly contested and its organizers and perpetrators are being rehabilitated,” the statement added.
It is also pointed out that the attempts of a part of the international community to pass an appropriate binding resolution in the UN Security Council “were blocked by the veto of the permanent members of the Security Council who support the current regime in Belgrade”.
“This belated but necessary resolution was directly provoked by the current regime of Aleksandar Vučić, with its systematic rehabilitation and celebration of the worst war criminals from among the Serbian people. Its adoption will not lead to anyone in the world considering the Serbian people as genocidal,” the announcement states. .
Women in Black and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights assess that “such distortions of the meaning of the resolution represent gross manipulation”
“And they prove that Aleksandar Vučić and his followers deny the difference between truth and deception, deny elementary logic and insult the cognitive powers of the citizens whom they address. perpetrators (of military and security structures and paramilitary formations) qualify as a crime of genocide cannot be interpreted as evidence that any nation is genocidal,” the statement added.
As Women in Black and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights say, the resolution also has a moral dimension.
“By confronting the criminal past, it enables our society to free itself from the imposed equalization of criminals with the entire nation and thus opens up the prospect of Serbia joining the family of prosperous democratic countries in Europe and the world,” the announcement states.