PEOPLES’-PATRIOTIC ALLIANCE OF RUSSIA
ALL-RUSSIAN SOCIAL MOVEMENT - Moscow, 31st March, 2003

After the assassination of the Prime Minister Djindjic a state of emergency has been imposed in Serbia. Of course, it’s upon the authorities of every country, to decide how they will react to each concrete situation. However, several facts show that the state of emergency is used, first of all, for political purposes. One can observe that in Serbia there is neither chaos nor civic disobedience. The Law and order are respected. There is no outside threat. The investigation of the murder goes without any obstacles. Then what sense at all the imposition of the state of emergency can have?

On the other hand, the freedom of the press is drastically limited. Meetings, rallies and strikes are forbidden. The behavior of the authorities far away exceeds the frames of the murder investigation and of the fight against crime. The police obtained the right to perform arbitrary arrests and searches, to monitor the phone talks, to violate the secrecy of the correspondence. More than two thousand people have been arrested. With a severe violation of Law 35 judges have been dismissed. There is a broad purge in the judiciary. So what kind of connection all these purely repressive measures can have with the search for the assassins? An impression is being created that under cover of the search for the organizers of Djindjic’s assassination, the actual Serbian regime attempts to trounce its personal and political rivals and to suppress every opposition.

Leading organizers of the activities in Slobodan Milosevic’s defense Bogoljub Bjelica, Uros Suvakovic and Goran Matic have been arrested. Members of Slobodan Milosevic’s family are under pressure and threats. It is obvious that the "witch hunt" and arrests of the persons who directly assist to President Milosevic in his defense against the false accusations are aimed to save the judicial farce at The Hague, which faces total fiasco.

The Western countries, which allegedly care about "democracy", completely ignore the fact that the fundamental citizens’ freedoms in Serbia are under most serious threat.

The Peoples’-Patriotic Alliance of Russia condemns the use of the state of emergency in Serbia for terrorizing the political opponents of the present regime and calls upon the Government of Serbia to restore as soon as possible the generally recognized citizens’ freedoms.

We intend to raise the issue of the political repression in Serbia at the forthcoming session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.