Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM) and Helsinki Committee for Human Rifgts in Serbia (HOPS) filed with the District Attorney (Prosecutor) in Belgrade April 1, 2009 a lawsuit against Dobrica Ćosić1 , charging him with inciting ethnic, racial and religious hatred and intolerance, as stipulated by §317, para. 1, as well as by §387, para. 3 of the Penal Code of the Republic of Serbia, citing „Racial and other discrimination“, since in his book „The Time of Serpents – Writer’s Notes 1999-2000“ Dobrica Ćosić wrote about the Albanian people, inter alia:
“That social, political and moral dreg of a tribal, barbarian Balkans, allies itself with America and the European Union in their struggle against the most democratic, most civilized, most enlightened Balkan people – the Serbian people.”
The two organizations underline that the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, ratified by Serbia (“Official Gazette of the SFRY” – International Contracts, 6/67) stipulates that “the term ‘racial discrimination’ shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life”…
