Police working to find authors of anti-Roma leaflets

Police working to find authors of anti-Roma leaflets

BELGRADE -- The police are working to discover who produced leaflets that openly call for violence, lynch, and hate speech toward the Roma.

The Republic of Serbia will not tolerate any kind of discrimination, the MUP said on Monday.

"The police are intensively working together with the prosecution to discover and identify the persons who created and distributed leaflets of the Srbska Akcija organization, which contain open calls for violence, lynch and hate speech against members of the Roma nationality," said the MUP.

A statement added that the police will protect freedom and safety of all citizens regardless of their ethnicity, and political, religious, or any other orientation.

Leaflets signed by the Srbska Akcija organization were found in mailboxes in Belgrade and other towns over the weekend, calling for violence against the Roma because they are supposedly guilty for all of society's problems.

The Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) NGO from Novi Sad posted the leaflet on its Facebook page. The leaflet calls on citizens to "organize" to protect against "expanding illegal Gypsy settlements" which bring with them "unhygienic conditions, fighting, constant noise, crime."

According to the leaflet, homeowners will eventually want to sell and move out of their neighborhoods, but the value of their property will have dropped because of the proximity of the Roma.

The group therefore urges citizens to, together with their neighbors, "organize before it's too late," and use "public appeals, petitions, and protests to solve this problem now."

AFA warned that the leaflet contains "the most primitive form of fascist...