PM: No room for xenophobia and homophobia

I love Serbia and Serbian people, but believe that certain things we should change rather fast. One of the biggest issues here, is the rule of law / law enforcement. Any kind of violence is to be condemned and drastically sanctioned. Unfortunately this is not the case, only looking at the most recent cases, where convicted criminals are being set free after a short time is not acceptable. The judicature has to send very strong signals to these people.

On the other hand, also legal uncertainty is still one of the biggest obstacle for foreign investors and this makes it a high risk country. Only to see, that priority court cases can last between 2 and 5 years, there is no reason for this. And Serbia is losing a huge amount of urgently needed fees and taxes, which could be collected much faster if court rulings could be achieved earlier.

This is nothing new, and it is happening everywhere. Young Men with no direction, and no place in society commit attocious acts of violence in order to show how powerful they are to their friends. They find some people to blaim all their stresses, problems and failures on, and destroy those people's lives as if life or mercy do not matter. I don't think longer prison sentences will reduce the number of people who do this, because violent criminals rarely think about their actions to begin with, but it would limit the number of second offenses because the perpetrators would be in prison and off the street. I know these problems are more common in economically distressed areas, but they still pop up in wealthier areas.

There has to be more to solving problems like this than dumping it on the courts, but I don't know what that could be.

I have a theory, the richer a society get, the more tolerant it becomes....
Can you imagine a rich guy who drives a Lamburgini chasing after gays and beating them up? NOPE. It's simple, the more unemployed, economically troubled people (with nothing useful to do in life) in society the more you get xenophobes and homophobes... rich people have other stuff to worry about than some random gay couple on the street.... people doing degrees or working night shifts don't even have time to scratch their head, let alone worry about a gay pride.... also when people are poorer they tend to be more religious so more intolerant.. I understand why these people exist in Serbia and there is only one simple solution
FIX THE GOD DAMN ECONOMY!
Cheers.

(Comm. Parrisson, 16 September 2014 12:56)

LOL, German is killed in Belgrade, you say: Kosovo bla bla bla. Why this obsession? :)

"I don't think longer prison sentences will reduce the number of people who do this, because violent criminals rarely think about their actions to begin with, but it would limit the number of second offenses because the perpetrators would be in prison and off the street."
(marKo, 15 September 2014 18:53)

I think punishing those criminal acts will eventually reduce the numbers of those acts in the long term. Downplaying them only causes people to get used to it or even tolerate it - you can see it in Kosovo with stoning of Serbs which is downplayed even by politicians and police as 'acts of playing kids', and not what it is: Acts caused only by intolerance and ethnic hate which should have no place in any society.

Blah, blah, blah ... One homosexual foreigner gets beat up in Belgrade, the EU is alerted and the Serbs are brought forth to bare their bottoms and be lashed. Meanwhile in the rest of Europe, Jews are beaten, shot, their synagogues burned. Again. Not a problem, I guess.

Blah, blah, blah ... One homosexual foreigner gets beat up in Belgrade, the EU is alerted and the Serbs are brought forth to bare their bottoms and be lashed. Meanwhile in the rest of Europe, Jews are beaten, shot, their synagogues burned. Again. Not a problem, I guess.
(Paul, 16 September 2014 00:22)
=============================
Even one person getting beaten for being who they are is too much.
You're right about the Jews. Here in Australia Jews are paying a fortune to have security around their schools because of Islamic extremists and some very misguided young people on the left.
Some Jewish students were denied entry to their university because they are Jews. So anti semetism has spread again but this time it has gone a lot further than Europe.
This is a huge problem but governments aren't reacting at all. Yes, we should worry about this and do something about it because if we don't we are no better than the Nazis of today.

LOL, German is killed in Belgrade, you say: Kosovo bla bla bla. Why this obsession? :)
(Reader, 16 September 2014 16:28)
=================================
He was making a point on how intollerance if left unchecked will result in it becoming the norm and then he gave an example of where it is the norm. I think it fitted very nicely into the discussion.
I absolutely hate violence against anyone just beause they are perceived to be less valuable than another member of siciety because of their colour, sexual orientation, age or anything else. But if a person belonging to a minority group behaves in an unacceptable manner and thinks that being part of a minority will offer his some protection then I also hate the race card being used.
Anyone breaking the law should be punished but especially incur tougher punishment if it was a hate crime.

This is a huge problem but governments aren't reacting at all. Yes, we should worry about this and do something about it because if we don't we are no better than the Nazis of today.
(Peggy, 17 September 2014 01:30)
Completly agree with you on that issue. Tollerance and an open mind especially when it comes to LGBT rights is something the entire Balkan needs to learn and is not only linked to some islamic fundamentalists.

Blah, blah, blah ... One homosexual foreigner gets beat up in Belgrade, the EU is alerted and the Serbs are brought forth to bare their bottoms and be lashed. Meanwhile in the rest of Europe, Jews are beaten, shot, their synagogues burned. Again. Not a problem, I guess.

I love Serbia and Serbian people, but believe that certain things we should change rather fast. One of the biggest issues here, is the rule of law / law enforcement. Any kind of violence is to be condemned and drastically sanctioned. Unfortunately this is not the case, only looking at the most recent cases, where convicted criminals are being set free after a short time is not acceptable. The judicature has to send very strong signals to these people.

On the other hand, also legal uncertainty is still one of the biggest obstacle for foreign investors and this makes it a high risk country. Only to see, that priority court cases can last between 2 and 5 years, there is no reason for this. And Serbia is losing a huge amount of urgently needed fees and taxes, which could be collected much faster if court rulings could be achieved earlier.

(Comm. Parrisson, 16 September 2014 12:56)

LOL, German is killed in Belgrade, you say: Kosovo bla bla bla. Why this obsession? :)

This is nothing new, and it is happening everywhere. Young Men with no direction, and no place in society commit attocious acts of violence in order to show how powerful they are to their friends. They find some people to blaim all their stresses, problems and failures on, and destroy those people's lives as if life or mercy do not matter. I don't think longer prison sentences will reduce the number of people who do this, because violent criminals rarely think about their actions to begin with, but it would limit the number of second offenses because the perpetrators would be in prison and off the street. I know these problems are more common in economically distressed areas, but they still pop up in wealthier areas.

There has to be more to solving problems like this than dumping it on the courts, but I don't know what that could be.

"I don't think longer prison sentences will reduce the number of people who do this, because violent criminals rarely think about their actions to begin with, but it would limit the number of second offenses because the perpetrators would be in prison and off the street."
(marKo, 15 September 2014 18:53)

I think punishing those criminal acts will eventually reduce the numbers of those acts in the long term. Downplaying them only causes people to get used to it or even tolerate it - you can see it in Kosovo with stoning of Serbs which is downplayed even by politicians and police as 'acts of playing kids', and not what it is: Acts caused only by intolerance and ethnic hate which should have no place in any society.

I have a theory, the richer a society get, the more tolerant it becomes....
Can you imagine a rich guy who drives a Lamburgini chasing after gays and beating them up? NOPE. It's simple, the more unemployed, economically troubled people (with nothing useful to do in life) in society the more you get xenophobes and homophobes... rich people have other stuff to worry about than some random gay couple on the street.... people doing degrees or working night shifts don't even have time to scratch their head, let alone worry about a gay pride.... also when people are poorer they tend to be more religious so more intolerant.. I understand why these people exist in Serbia and there is only one simple solution
FIX THE GOD DAMN ECONOMY!
Cheers.

LOL, German is killed in Belgrade, you say: Kosovo bla bla bla. Why this obsession? :)
(Reader, 16 September 2014 16:28)
=================================
He was making a point on how intollerance if left unchecked will result in it becoming the norm and then he gave an example of where it is the norm. I think it fitted very nicely into the discussion.
I absolutely hate violence against anyone just beause they are perceived to be less valuable than another member of siciety because of their colour, sexual orientation, age or anything else. But if a person belonging to a minority group behaves in an unacceptable manner and thinks that being part of a minority will offer his some protection then I also hate the race card being used.
Anyone breaking the law should be punished but especially incur tougher punishment if it was a hate crime.

Blah, blah, blah ... One homosexual foreigner gets beat up in Belgrade, the EU is alerted and the Serbs are brought forth to bare their bottoms and be lashed. Meanwhile in the rest of Europe, Jews are beaten, shot, their synagogues burned. Again. Not a problem, I guess.
(Paul, 16 September 2014 00:22)
=============================
Even one person getting beaten for being who they are is too much.
You're right about the Jews. Here in Australia Jews are paying a fortune to have security around their schools because of Islamic extremists and some very misguided young people on the left.
Some Jewish students were denied entry to their university because they are Jews. So anti semetism has spread again but this time it has gone a lot further than Europe.
This is a huge problem but governments aren't reacting at all. Yes, we should worry about this and do something about it because if we don't we are no better than the Nazis of today.

This is a huge problem but governments aren't reacting at all. Yes, we should worry about this and do something about it because if we don't we are no better than the Nazis of today.
(Peggy, 17 September 2014 01:30)
Completly agree with you on that issue. Tollerance and an open mind especially when it comes to LGBT rights is something the entire Balkan needs to learn and is not only linked to some islamic fundamentalists.