Attorney: Serbia Must Not Become Pinochet's Chile, Process Against Activists is Political Persecution

BETAPHOTO/DRAGAN GOJIC

Attorney Vladimir Horovic, whose law firm is defending a number of activists suspected of crimes against Serbia's constitutional order and security, said on May 22 that "there is no doubt: the essence of the process is the political persecution of dissidents" and that it "has one more function - intimidating all citizens of this country who exercise the right to freedom of thought."

"This procedure has so far shown that we are heading in a direction opposite to Europe and what we call European values. Pinochet's regime in Chile is not too far away. It is not too far away when the families [of the arrested activists] did not know whether their sons, daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers were alive for months and where they are. It is possible that our society is heading in the direction of Chile, and this we must not allow," Horovic said in an interview with the Vreme weekly.

He said that "it is important that there is a strong social stance that opposes lawlessness, that opposes illegal detention." "The condemnation of other countries and European institutions is important because this case attests to the state of human rights in Serbia. It says that the human rights to freedom, freedom of thought and expression are being violated," Horovic said.