“The canopy did not ask who voted for whom. It did not ask whether someone was a party member. In a corrupt system, we are all targets, whether we support or oppose the authorities,” said Dorotea Stepanović, a student at the Faculty of Science. Students also announced a new large rally in Niš.
“While those at the top fill their pockets, buy villas and apartments, you are given temporary jobs so that you will protect them while they steal without obstruction. You help them, not the other way around. They steal millions, but you bear the consequences. They flee responsibility, but you remain in the ruins,” the student said.
She sent a message “to everyone,” and especially to members and supporters of the Serbian Progressive Party: “The system of injustice does not protect anyone forever. The canopy is hanging over your head as well. It is only a matter of time.”
“The news that the measure of house arrest has been lifted for former ministers Goran Vesić and Tomislav Momirović, suspected of having stolen more than 115 million dollars through corrupt activities in the reconstruction of the railway, should be a warning to us that all criminals close to the authorities will be freed from all responsibility. That is a clear message that the lives of ordinary citizens are worthless,” the student in Niš emphasized.
We remind that the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime is conducting a financial investigation against Vesić and Momirović in the case of the construction of the Serbia–Hungary railway. She also commented on the fact that President Aleksandar Vučić signed the law proposed by SNS MP Uglješa Mrdić.
In Niš, 15 months since the collapse of the canopy were marked
“The so-called ‘Mrdić laws’ were not adopted for the sake of citizens, nor for efficiency. They were adopted without public debate, without the opinion of experts, without public discussion and by trampling on all procedures, under an urgent procedure. They were adopted so that even the last corner of the free and independent part of the judiciary would be placed under complete control of the authorities,” she pointed out.
With these amendments, as she explained in her speech, the independence of the public prosecutor’s office as a state body is brutally destroyed and the constitutional position of the prosecutor is annulled. This is, she adds, directly contrary to the Constitution, contrary to the law and contrary to everything called the rule of law.
“The most dangerous part of these laws is the de facto abolition of the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime. Its competencies are transferred to the Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade, under the control of Chief Public Prosecutor Nenad Stefanović, under direct political influence. This is not reform, this is clear protection of organized crime and corruption. The special department for high-tech crime is placed under the direct command of that same chief prosecutor. Why? To control social networks. To silence every free word. To declare opinion a crime,” she stated.
She further added: “That is why there is a rush to push the laws through before trials in cases that are approaching. That is why the judiciary is being broken before the truth comes before the court.”
Students call on “all lawyers, public prosecutors, judges, all employees in the judiciary not to remain silent. Silence is not an option. Silence means complicity. A work stoppage is lawful resistance and the last way to defend institutions.”
She also said that students will not remain silent.
“We do not want to live in a state where laws are written so that crimes remain unpunished. We demand accountability. We demand an independent judiciary. We demand justice for the 16 killed. Solidarity is our last line of defense. Students will not give up the fight for justice. Students will not give up fighting for a state of functional institutions. Coward, understand this, we are the state, not crime and corruption! Call elections!” she emphasized.
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Source: Nedeljnik, Foto: ATA Images