With the decision no. 212-113/58 by the police station in Stari Grad, Belgrade the 7th of March 2008, all public gatherings organised by Women in Black on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of 8th of March were forbidden in Belgrade. By this decision Serbia became one of few countries in the world who announced 8th of March a forbidden celebration, and Belgrade the only European capital in which it was not allowed to publicly mark March the 8th.
This illegal, hypocritical decision, said to be for the sake of protecting public order and peace, makes one of many proofs of the fact that Serbia is in un-announced state of emergency, and a visible result of the intention of prime minister Kostunica and his ideologically likeminded to bring Serbia back to the time before the 5th of October. The Democratic Party of Serbia and New Serbia want, together with the parties from the Milosevic time, to bring an atmosphere of fear into the country, while stimulating non-punished violence against all those striving for a democratic and European perspective in Serbia. Assisted by cleric-fascistic and neo-Nazi groups, they want to make an authoritarian and isolated society of Serbia, to strengthen the patriarchal-nationalistic matrix and impose a one-sided political and cultural thinking and a spiritual hegemony of the most conservative retrograde ideas. Their objective is to create a homogenised obedient majority which doesn’t tolerate any other voices.
Women in Black and all non-governmental organisations who are striving for human rights, democracy, development and an open and European Serbia will use all legal possibilities to prove how this ban on gathering is illegal, and rather a decision based on misuse of political power possessed by the parties in the government. Women in Black will defend our right to peaceful gathering.
Women in Black will continue, together with all democratic forces, to work on the liberation of Serbia from all that is bringing us back to the dark ages. We will invite our activists and the public to mark the 100th anniversary of the international day of fight for women’s rights on the postponed 8th of March.
Belgrade, 10. 3. 2008.
