The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs strongly condemns threats which Serbian convicted war criminal Vojislav Šešelj has made against Tomislav Žigmanov, president of the Democratic Alliance of Croats in Vojvodina and a member of the Serbian parliament, and Nenad Čanak, president of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina. Šešelj reiterated threats against the leaders of the Croatian community in Vojvodina only 24 hours after the appeals chamber of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals sentenced him to ten year’s imprisonment for crimes against humanity, including his warmongering speech in the village of Hrtkovci on 6 May 1992, which led to the deportation, persecution, forced resettlement and other inhumane acts against Vojvodina Croats.
The ministry expresses serious concern that the Serbian authorities have remained silent on Šešelj’s repeated threats of the gravest international war crimes he was convicted for.
We demand and expect appropriate legal reaction from the relevant Serbian authorities to these repeated outbursts of hatred and direct threats against members of the same minority community in Vojvodina that was the object of brutal ethnically-motivated violence in the 1990s and whose wounds are still fresh.
The ministry also calls for Serbia to prevent any form of physical and verbal violence and intolerance against members of the Croatian minority in Serbia.
The protection of physical integrity and human rights of all citizens, in accordance with the European standards, should be the top priority of any EU-aspiring country.