The Coalition for Media Freedom is appalled by the gesture of the President of the Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), Olivera Zekic, who posted a profile photo in a Nazi SS uniform on her Telegram channel, and her “explanation” that she did it “out of pure provocation”.
Who is Olivera Zekic provoking by promoting the Nazi uniform – millions of Holocaust victims?
The SS Division was an elite formation of the Third Reich’s armed forces, responsible for the most horrific crimes committed during World War II.
It is absolutely shameless and disgusting that, in an attempt to justify that heinous act, Olivera Zekic stated that the caricatures of Predrag Koraksic Koraks and Dusan Petricic were “much worse” than the uniform she chose for the photo montage she used to promote herself on social networks.
We call on the competent authorities to react as soon as possible and implement the Law on the Prohibition of Neo-Nazi or Fascist Manifestations and the Prohibition of the Use of Neo-Nazi and Fascist Symbols. According to Article 3 of that law, it is prohibited to “produce, reproduce, store, present, glorify or in any other way spread propaganda material, symbols or signs that cause, incite or spread hatred or intolerance, propagate or justify neo-Nazi and fascist ideas and organizations or the legal order is threatened in another way”.
It is of essential importance for this society that, apart from judicial authorities, all institutions of the system and public actors react to this dangerous act. If they do not do that, a terrible message will be sent that in Serbia there is institutional support for the reaffirmation of Nazi ideas, and thus all the terrible consequences that they have produced, or that could yet produce.
There is no greater threat to society than such a message.
The Coalition for Media Freedom consists of the Association of Media, the Association of Online Media (AOM), the Independent Association of Journalists of Vojvodina (NDNV), the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (NUNS), the Business Association of Local and Independent Media “Local Press” and the Slavko Curuvija Foundation.
