Serbian Intelectuals Sign Appeal for Support to Ana Lalic, Dinko Gruhonjic

Hate graffiti (BETAPHOTO/ Dinko Gruhonjic)

A group of Serbia’s 80 intellectuals and public figures launched on March 25 the Appeal for Freedom of Speech and Critical Thinking, demanding that the international community should protect the lives of a journalist, Ana Lalic, and her peer, Professor Dinko Gruhonjic, both living in Novi Sad.

The signatories underlined they were “seriously concerned for the lives of critical voices in Serbia, as Aleksandar Vucic’s regime increases repression.”

“President Vucic’s propaganda has targeted and exposed to an unprecedented campaign a journalist, teaching at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, Professor Dinko Gruhonjic, and the president of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina, Ana Lalic. By manipulating video footage, and intensifying calls for lynching, their safety has been seriously threatened. Lalic and Gruhonjic have criticized the regime before, but the way they have been targeted recently and calls for lynching the two served, as a paradigm, to silence all opposition voices,” the Appeal says.

The Serbian intellectuals and public figures warned at “a brutal and anti-civilizational campaign” against Dinko Gruhonjic and Ana Lalic, relying on “Putin’s methods,” which also threatened to escalate.

“We would like to caution the European Union and the United States that a hate campaign has been organized, and that calls for lynching Gruhonjic and Lalic might be just the beginning of a scenario to follow Vucic’s increasingly strong ties with the regime in Moscow. Therefore, we appeal to the international community to keep President Vucic from his repressive acts at home, and make it clear to him that it will no longer tolerate violent and anti-democratic conduct, and that a decision to continue and deepen authoritarian practices will have consequences,” the signatories underlined in the Appeal.