Oliver Ivanovic: I feel safer now

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA - Leader of Citizens’ Initiative ‘Serbia, Democracy, Justice (SDP) Oliver Ivanovic said Friday that he is feeling safer in a detention center in Kosovska Mitrovica.

Ivanovic was transferred to the detention center in the majority-Serb north Kosovska Mitrovica after spending 45 days and hunger striking for eight days in detention in Pristina.

In a letter to the public, Ivanovic pointed to a huge difference in the environment of the detention center in Mitrovica, particularly regarding his feeling of personal safety. Now, he said, he is safe, closer to his family, who can visit him, and to his lawyer, which is making preparations of his defense easier.

“I will finally be able to go out for some fresh air and walk around; as far as the prison rules permit, though, but with a certain feeling of freedom," Ivanovic wrote.

In the letter, which he signed as a “political prisoner”, he said that he is aware that he is facing a fight for freedom in a painful process where he will have to defeat “the politically motivated indictment.”

“You are standing up for my freedom, but also your own, in a proper and dignified manner, as various representatives performing tasks that are important for the normalization of lives of the people in Kosovska Mitrovica,” Ivanovic said.

He thanked all who have supported him, first of all the people of Mitrovica and the north of the southern Serbian province, then the outgoing Serbian government, its prime minister and deputy prime minister, the minister in charge of Kosovo-Metohija, the Serbian Orthodox Church, and his friends and colleagues in the SDP.

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