ASI statement read during a protest against the arrests and charges

On September 4th 2009 the District Court judge in Belgrade ordered a measure of thirty days’ detention to a group of six young people who were arrested on September 3rd. They are accused of writing graffiti on a wall and then throwing two Molotov cocktails at the Greek Embassy in Belgrade on August 25th, around 3 a.m.

The unusual circumstance concerning the actions of police and prosecutors in this case is that the arrested are charged with a criminal offence of international terrorism. In the criminal law of the Republic of Serbia this offence is treated within the same group as, for example, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes against a civilian populace, organising and encouraging to commit genocide and war crimes, conducting an aggressive war, and similar.

Let us remember that the only person convicted for participation in last year’s burning of the American Embassy in Belgrade on February 21st was charged only with a serious act against public safety, despite the fact that the embassy was heavily damaged and one of the persons who was in the convicted’s group died in the fire.

In a moment when rights and liberties in Serbia are being seriously narrowed by changes in the criminal law and the law on public information, a decision to charge the six arrested with international terrorism shows the intent of some State structures to discourage any political critique against its actions by stepping up the repression and misusing and misinterpreting its own laws. Because of this we express our solidarity with the arrested, demand that the ridiculous charge be revoked and that they be immediately released.

Anarcho-Syndicalist Initiative

[Statement edited for clarity by Anarkismo]