Cedomir Kokanovic (BETAPHOTO/MEDIA CENTER BELGRADE)
Cedomir Kokanovic, a member of the Managing Board of the Belgrade Bar Association, on Aug. 4 said that every day, lawyers have more reasons to decisively voice their opinion and take to the streets.
Commenting on frequent attacks on lawyers in Serbia, Kokanovic told BETA that “lawyers are bleeding again” and unless they exert pressure, attacks on lawyers will not stop.
“The car of our colleague Violeta Tasic in Leskovac has been set on fire and she has been receiving threats. Colleague Nikola Mirkovic in Valjevo, who represents victims of police brutality, is now being accused of assaulting the police. This accusation comes at the time when he should defend his clients from the police, not himself from the police. Earlier, his colleague working on the same case and from the same city, Jana Acimovic Planojevic, and all of her family members were scorned by the pro-regime tabloids,” Kokanovic said.
He also pointed to the recent attack on lawyer Milos Pavlovic and the brutal beating of Danko Cvejic in front of his children.
The police and the judiciary have not functioned in accordance with the law for a long time, Kokanovic said, but added that there is still some sensitivity in the system when a lawyer is either attacked or when the system attacks them.
“However, the system will not react properly unless lawyers response decisively, quickly and harshly to arrests, beatings, persecutions, and searches of their colleagues,” Kokanovic stressed.
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