those responsible for violence that interrupted a Christian music concert, a news agency reported Friday, August 15.
Forum 18 News Service (F18News) said the appeal came after the event, organized by the Church of God Pentecostal congregation outside Belgrade, nearly ended in bloodshed as "the power line was cut by an axe, someone threw a hand grenade near the stage."
When the concert stopped "one person drove his car in the park where spectators were, threatening organizers that he was armed," F18News said about the August 8 incidents in Vrdnik, 90 kilometres (60 miles) north-west of the Serbian capital.
No injuries were reported, but police are reportedly investigating the violence and a Vrdnik city councillor expressed his regrets at these events. The attacks came as a major set-back for those staging the concert, a youth band of a Pentecostal church in Germany known as the Heidelberg-Leimen Gemeinde Gottes e.V.
MUSICIANS "FELT BLAST"
Their team at the Vrdnik (summer) camp numbered eleven people and had five musicians at stage who reportedly felt the grenade blast more strongly than others, said Dragan Radovanovic, local Church of God pastor and camp director.
He added that as the group started to collect their audio system and instruments, "an angry man started to drive his car in the park, yelling at us and asking for trouble." The police was apparently reluctant to come but "after some harassment, this person left…in total disarray," Radovanovic said.
The pastor said he understood why a city lawmaker expressed his regret over the violence, the next day. "I understand that this is not very good for the image of a town that plans to develop its tourism economy."
SEVERAL YOUTH CAMPS
This year his Vrdnik Church of God organized five youth camps, with a total of 300 participants from all around Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia. They often host foreign visitors, like the German youth group which played for a small crowd of about 80 camp participants, F18News reported.
The august incident was the latest in a series of grenade attacks and other violence as well as hate speech against especially non Orthodox religious groups since last year across the former Yugoslav federation, now known as Serbia and Montenegro.
Analysts and human rights groups have linked the attacks across the region to nationalism fuelled by economic desperation after a decade of wars and ethnic strife.
MEDIA HATE SPEECH
"When society does not react at hate speech in the media, and graffiti on church walls, the next things are events like these.. ," the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia told F18News.
"We condemn (the violence) and ask the state to take measures against the perpetrators", the organization was quoted as saying.
Adventists, Jews, Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholics, Nazarenes, Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Lutherans, Reformed, Campus Crusade for Christ, Evangelicals, and Anglicans were all victims of different types of attack in 2002.
In the mainly ethnic Albanian Serbian province of Kosovo, Orthodox Serbian Christians have also been suffering.
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Following a timeline of recent attacks against Christians and religious groups across Serbia and Montenegro as monitored by F18News:
January 20, 2002 – The entrance door and glass wall in the Adventist church in Backa Palanka is broken and destroyed. Police inspectors tell Adventist elders that perpetrators are drunk young men "who do not intend to promote religious intolerance." (Sources: Humanitarian Law Centre report January 24, 2002, also Gradjanski list)
February 7, 2002 – Novi Sad’s mayor, Borislav Novakovic, repaints wall that equated the Jewish Star of David with three numerals 6 and a Pentagram – both symbols of Satanists. He expresses concern about similar hate attacks and a lack of tolerance. (Source: B92 February 8, 2002).
February 15, 2002 – Unknown perpetrators break windows in the Adventist church in Omoljica, near Pancevo, for the second time in 2002. (Source: F18News)
February 24-March 2, 2002- Adventist church in Belgrade is stoned three times. Incident follows a February 26 BK TV documentary portraying Protestants negatively as Adventists were associated with Satanists. On March 4 a group of high school students yells and threatens people at the front door of Belgrade Adventist church. Police intervenes, going to neighboring school to interview and warn students. (Source: F18News).
March 2002 – Jehovah Witnesses negatively portrayed in the "Vranjske novine", the local newspaper of Vranje. A house that supposedly belongs to them and was reported in the previous edition is stoned by a crowd calling them sects. (Source: F18News)
March 9, 2002 – A petrol bomb is thrown at the car of a Catholic priest in Sremska Mitrovica. Several dignitaries visit him. (Sources: Danas March 11 2002, Dnevnik March 12, 2002).
March 11, 2002 – The wall of the church yard of the Evangelical-Methodist Church in Stara Pazova is painted with the word "SECT". Same happens to the Adventist church’s wall and to the Nazarene’s prayer hall wall. (Source: F18News).
April 2002 – A hand grenade is thrown at the newly built Jehovah’s Witness kingdom hall in Vrbas. No one is injured. Daily stoning of the Belgrade kingdom hall in Milorada Mitrovica street, and graffiti at the kingdom hall in Radoja Dakica street reading: "Out of Serbia!" as well as swastikas. (Source: F18News).
April 2002 – The local Socialist Party of Serbia in Backa Palanka refuses to rent it’s premises to the Adventist church for a seminar, because unknown persons "threatened" to set the conference hall on fire. Seminar is held at another location, but cut short, due to disruptions and heckling of participants. (Source: Humanitarian Law Centre report August 29, 2002).
April 8, 2002 – Someone throws a petrol bomb at car of Stanisa Surbatovic, Baptist pastor in Niksic, Montenegro. A police investigation found that this was not an unintentional act. (Source: F18News).
April 22, 2002 – The Muslim Sandzak Democratic Party strongly condemns a hate speech by Serbian Orthodox Bishop Filaret at a rally held in Novi Priboj. "He used words in his speech from his well known chauvinistic vocabulary on who knows how many occasions." (Source: Radio Novi Pazar news at 2pm on April 22, 2002).
May, 2002 – Radio Odzaci cancels local Adventist broadcast programme after receiving serious threats due to the broadcast of alleged "sectarian programs". (Source:Humanitarian Law Centre report August 29, 2002).
June 1, 2002 – Baptists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists and Pentecostals are portrayed as dangerous sects/cults in the ISKRA magazine, and Alexander Mitrovic, Pentecostal pastor from Novi Sad, was specifically named. (Source: F18News).
6 June 2002 – The Romany Evangelical Church in Leskovac was broken in to and offering money was stolen. One week later, June 12, the Serbian Evangelical Church in Leskovac was broken in to and a sound mixer and PA system were stolen. Police opens criminal investigations. (Source: F18News).
June 7-June 10, 2002 – Five tombstones are destroyed in the Jewish cemetery in Subotica. Police finds glue and plastic bags at the scene, and believe that it was done by drug edicts with no other motivation. (Source: Glas javnosti June 13, 2002).
June 21, 2002 – Partially broken windows and the entrance door to the Adventist church in Sremska Mitrovica. A previous attack occurs during the night of May 31-June 1 which caused greater physical damage. (Source: F18News).
July 15, 2002 – Graffiti drawn on the Adventist church in Borca, near Belgrade, reading: "Out of Serbia" and "Sabbatarians are the sect". The local pastor reported that members of the "Obraz" organization (an ultra-nationalist group) had made inquiries about the church in previous weeks. (Source: Danas July 16, 2002).
August 17, 2002 – Graffiti of an exploding bomb painted on the wall of the Adventist church in Backa Palanka. The perpetrator, Vanja Knezevic, in 2001 wrote "Poisoners of the Spirit" and "Get out of Serbia" graffiti, and was charged with property damage. (Source: Humanitarian Law Centre report August 29, 2002).
August 21-October 12, 2002 – Adventist church in Smederevo is stoned eight times, large amount of material damage reported. The office of the public prosecutor conducts a criminal investigation. (Sources: F18News, B92).
October 2002 – Graffiti with upside down cross and Serbian nationalistic insignia painted on the Evangelical-Methodist church in Vrsac. (Source: F18News).
November 2002 – The German Lutheran-Reformed graveyard in Pancevo, planned to be "reconstructed" by the local government, is partially destroyed by the workers. After protests from media, the Ministry of Culture and Religion, and German Embassy in Belgrade work continues on the graveyard in proper fashion. (Source: Pancevacke novine November 13, 2002).
December 12, 2002 – Milan Gligoric, a Jehovah Witness and conscientious objector to bearing arms, is sentenced to 4 months in prison, with a 2 year suspended sentence, by a military court. (Source: War Resisters International Alerts April 17, 2003).
November 16, 2002 – "Glas javnosti" daily newspaper tries to connect "Novi zivot" (Campus Crusade for Christ) with the suicide of student Milan Kircanski, in the context of "dangerous sects" that are active in Serbia. (Source: F18News).
December 24, 2002 – The Anglican priest and members of the Belgrade Anglican church are prevented by radical ‘Orthodox’ believers from entering the Orthodox Patriarchate to celebrate a Christmas service. Fifty young men, mostly holding icons and candles in their hands, stop the Anglican believers, including the British Ambassador Charles Crawford, from entering the building. (Sources: Numerous local media reports, Danas December 26, B92 on December 25, 2002).
December 29, 2002 – After several verbal attacks on Mirjana Hercog, a paediatrician in Cacak and of Jewish background, someone writes anti-Semitic messages and symbols on the facade of her house including: "Crystal Night", "Serbia to the Serbians", "ZOG Will Fall". Hercog describes messages as fascistic. (Source: B92 December 29, 2002).
