European Democrats Criticize How Arrested Student Is Treated

Prison (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

The European Democratic Party condemned on Sept. 17 the Serbian authorities’ treatment of arrested student Bogdan Jovicic who is being treated, in their words, “not as a voice of conscience, but as a dangerous criminal.”

The European democrats added that Jovicic had been “vaguely accused of participating in protests in August,” that he had been denied the right to a proper defense and that he was looking “at the door of justice closing before him.”

In the statement, this pro-Europe centrist party indicated that Bogdan Jovicic’s stay in custody had been extended by another 30 days and added that this was “not because he is guilty, but because of fear of his courage – the same that led him to start the hunger strike.” It was announced in Novi Sad on Sept. 15 that Bogdan Jovicic, the student who was arrested after the premises of the Serbian Progressive Party in that city were destroyed by rioters in August, started a hunger strike six days earlier.

The European democrats particularly criticized the way in which Jovicic was brought to the funeral of his father several days ago, surrounded by three police officers and with his ankles chained, “as a man stripped of dignity.” “On the sixth day of his hunger strike, Bogdan’s emaciated body speaks louder than words about repression, injustice and a deep wound inflicted on democracy,” the party declared in the statement and further said that “such scenes do not belong in Europe, but in the shadows that we thought we had left behind.”