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Council of Europe on target to consultive status to group whose Serbian rep was Milosevic’s psycholo
Added: (Mon Jul 11 2005)
A complaint filed today to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) by EWARC reveals that the Serbian representative of the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism (FECRIS) was Slobodan Milosevic’s regime mental indoctrination of Serbian soldiers who carried out “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. The new findings come two days before the Council of Europe is expected to decide whether to grant FECRIS’ application for consultative status.
Former colonel Bratislav Petrovic, a neuropsychiatrist now in charge of FECRIS’s operations in Serbia, headed the Institute for Mental Health and Military Psychology of the Military Academy in Belgrade when Milosevic was president of Yugoslavia. From that position, Petrovic specialised in the selection and psychological preparation of Milosevic’s army before the soldiers were sent against Albanian Muslims.
Milosevic is on trial for war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at the Hague.
Now retired from the military, Petrovic represents FECRIS in Serbia and has spoken extensively at FECRIS conferences. The complaint to ECRI, filed on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the mass killing of thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica, alleges that Petrovic has been instrumental in stoking violence against religious minorities in Serbia.
EWARC’s complaint requests that the European Centre against Racism and Intolerance investigate FECRIS, which has been approved for consultancy status by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly despite 22 court judgements against its member groups and individuals, including seven criminal convictions of its president, Friedrich Griess. The Committee of Ministers is expected to discuss FECRIS’s application and make a final decision at a meeting Wednesday.
Petrovic has toured Serbia with police chief Zoran Lukovic, speaking and giving lectures that stir up intolerance and hatred, the complaint states. The Youth Initiative for Human Rights Serbia has filed a complaint against Lukovic.
EWARC’s complaint attaches the results of an investigation conducted by French human rights lawyer Patricia Duval, who stated “Colonel Petrovic and Zoran Lukovic are bound together in a campaign of intolerance towards minorities that must be stopped. We are concerned that the French-based organisation FECRIS is involved in perpetuating the hatreds stirred up by war crime defendant Milosevic, through the activities of Petrovic.”
Bashy Quraishy, President of Media Watch, said that he had received the report and read it with great concern. “That a group such as FECRIS is active in working against minorities in the Balkans and, it seems, is continuing the same kind of polices as under the Milosovic regime, is something that the ECRI should look into. Furthermore, FECRIS should not be granted any kind of NGO status without these and other allegations being looked into. NGOs are meant to be contributing towards a climate of tolerance and pluralism not working to prevent it.”
Colonel Petrovic has publicly condemned several spiritual movements, such as Transcendental Meditation. At a FECRIS conference last year in Marseille, France, he claimed that he had shut down Sanatan, a Hindu movement. Sanatan’s premises were burnt to the ground by unidentified assailants who attacked it with Molotov cocktails. The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) and Helsinki Human Rights Committee have demanded that Serbian authorities find the perpetrators. In spite of the concerns raised by these human rights organisations, Petrovic boasted that he gave two interviews to the media condemning Sanatan. He has accused minority movements of “lying” and preparing “victim followers for antisocial and terrorist acts”.
For further information please contact
Patricia Duval
Human Rights Lawyer - Paris, France
Tel: (33) 1 43 67 00 28
Mobile: (33) 6 32 95 72 19
Youth Initiative for Human Rights - Belgrade, Serbia
Miroslav Jankovic, Human Rights Lawyer and Researcher
Tel: (381) 11 361 36 49
Mobile: (381) 64 171 14 97