SRS: Journalists to receive protection

SRS Secretary-General Aleksandar Vucic says over 2,000 people will handle security at the “All-Serb Rally” on July 29. Vucic said that there would be two security guards to every journalist at the meeting “against the Boris Tadic regime”. SRS: Journalists to receive protection He said that it would be a peaceful and dignified meeting from which certain requests and pleas would be sent to various state organs that he hopes will be listened to, and he called on the police’s assistance to make sure the protest passes off peacefully. The Serb Radical Party (SRS) official did not rule out the possibility that the meeting scheduled to start at 19.00 CET in Republic Square in Belgrade, to be followed by a “media walk”, could continue until the demands were met, and he could not confirm how long the protest would last. “I call on all citizens taking part at the rally to conduct themselves in a peaceful and dignified manner, as we have to set ourselves apart from those who want to destroy Serbia—no-one can set fire to the parliament or the television station, there will be no lynching of journalists, and there must be no repeat of October 5 when [former RTS chief] Dragoljub Milanovic was assaulted, or of the assault of the journalists a few days ago,” he stressed. Vucic said that those who caused incidents were merely playing into the hands of “the Tadic regime or were expressly sent by Tadic himself.” He said that besides SRS officials, the meeting would be attended by representatives of other political parties, including New Serbia leader Velimir Ilic who would be addressing the crowds, while the Democratic Party of Serbia had called on its members and supporters to attend the rally. He stated members of “Serbia’s intellectual elite” would also be attending the gathering. The SRS secretary-general said that the president “with his prosecutors and directors and editors-in-chief of certain media had launched a comprehensive witch hunt against his political opponents in the country,” and that he had “decided to arrest whoever he can in Serbia, and it bothers him apparently that certain people have parliamentary immunity.” “I call on Tadic to arrest me, I don’t have parliamentary immunity, and I’m an ordinary citizen of this country,” he said. Aleksandar Vucic (FoNet, archive)

SRS: Journalists to receive protection

He said that it would be a peaceful and dignified meeting from which certain requests and pleas would be sent to various state organs that he hopes will be listened to, and he called on the police’s assistance to make sure the protest passes off peacefully.

The Serb Radical Party (SRS) official did not rule out the possibility that the meeting scheduled to start at 19.00 CET in Republic Square in Belgrade, to be followed by a “media walk”, could continue until the demands were met, and he could not confirm how long the protest would last.

“I call on all citizens taking part at the rally to conduct themselves in a peaceful and dignified manner, as we have to set ourselves apart from those who want to destroy Serbia—no-one can set fire to the parliament or the television station, there will be no lynching of journalists, and there must be no repeat of October 5 when [former RTS chief] Dragoljub Milanović was assaulted, or of the assault of the journalists a few days ago,” he stressed.

Vučić said that those who caused incidents were merely playing into the hands of “the Tadić regime or were expressly sent by Tadić himself.” He said that besides SRS officials, the meeting would be attended by representatives of other political parties, including New Serbia leader Velimir Ilić who would be addressing the crowds, while the Democratic Party of Serbia had called on its members and supporters to attend the rally. He stated members of “Serbia’s intellectual elite” would also be attending the gathering.

The SRS secretary-general said that the president “with his prosecutors and directors and editors-in-chief of certain media had launched a comprehensive witch hunt against his political opponents in the country,” and that he had “decided to arrest whoever he can in Serbia, and it bothers him apparently that certain people have parliamentary immunity.”

“I call on Tadić to arrest me, I don’t have parliamentary immunity, and I’m an ordinary citizen of this country,” he said.