Serbian Activists Commemorate Srebrenica Anniversary in Belgrade

Several events were held in Belgrade on Wednesday and Thursday to commemorate the anniversary of the 1995 massacres of thousands of Bosniaks from Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces.

On Thursday, Youth Initiative for Human Rights activists lit candles for the victims near the Serbian presidency building, and afterwards, the Helsinski Committee staged a theatre play entitled 'Srebrenica. When We Who Were Killed Rise Up'.

During the event, a group of some 15 people entered the room where the play was being staged and tried to stop it. They shouted at the audience and director Zlatko Pakovic, and sang a song about former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, but left after around than half an hour.

On Wednesday, peace group Women in Black alongside other anti-war and human rights NGOs held up a banner on Branko's Bridge in central Belgrade with the words 'Responsibility', 'Solidarity' and 'We will never forget Srebrenica genocide', as well as pieces of paper with the number 8,372 written on them, representing the death toll of the massacres.

Stasa Zajovic from Women in Black said at the event that they were asking for the facts about Srebrenica, determined by courts which have classified the mass killings as genocide, to be respected in Serbia. Serbian officials reject the genocide definition.

"We consider the prime minister and president of Serbia most responsible for propagating a climate in which any kind of responsibility and respect for the verdicts of international courts is rejected. We think it is necessary to change this, not only because it is Serbia's obligation as part of EU integration but because is represents basic respect for the genocide victims," Zajovic said.

Human rights and anti-war activists arrive at...