VIDOVDAN IN BELGRADE

 /click here to see the pictures/

          More than 5000 people gathered on Monday, 28 June at the Republic Square in Belgrade on invitation of Sloboda/Freedom Association, manifesting the unbeaten spirit of Free Serbia and demanding freedom for the leader of the national resistance against Western aggression Slobodan Milosevic.

          The rally was addressed by the leaders of Serbian patriotic and left opposition and prominent international guests. The speakers were Professor Velko Valkanov (Bulgaria), founder and Cochairman (with Ramsey Clark and Alexander Zinoviev) of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic (ICDSM), Klaus Hartmann (Germany), Vice-President of the World Union of Freethinkers and Vice-Chairman of ICDSM, Nadja Tesic (USA), writer and university professor, Aleksandar Vucic, MP, General Secretary of the Serbian Radical Party, Milorad Vucelic, MP, Vice-President of the Socialist Party of Serbia, Branko Kitanovic, General Secretary of the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Vladimir Krsljanin, assistant of President Milosevic and Bogoljub Bjelica, Chairman of the Managing Board of the Freedom Association.

          The rally started with the Yugoslav national anthem and the broadcasting of the famous Vidovdan 1989 speech of President Slobodan Milosevic before two million of people. Participants of the rally also listened the just adopted Address of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Russia and Belarus to the parliaments of NATO and EU countries, international organizations and judges of the Hague Tribunal, demanding release of Slobodan Milosevic and Vojislav Seselj, blessing address of Filaret, Bishop of Mileseva, messages of solidarity of the General Secretary of the World Peace Council Thanasis Pafilis and of the President of CPRF Gennadi Zyuganov. The Belgrade protest, marking the third anniversary of the kidnapping of President Milosevic, received also many letters of support of organizations and individuals from the country and from abroad and welcomed the anti-NATO protests in Istanbul and protests for the release of President Milosevic and against NATO crimes in the Balkans held in Moscow, The Hague, New York and several Greek cities.

          The rally at the Republic Square ended with reading the ten Demands to all Serbian and Federal state organs and institutions to engage concretely in achieving release of President Milosevic, abolishment of the Hague Tribunal and continuing the proceedings against NATO and its leaders.

          After the rally, the protesters with numerous red, blue and white flags of Sloboda and posters of President Milosevic marched along the central streets of Belgrade, stopping in front of the Serbian and Federal Parliaments and the Government of Serbia, where Sloboda leader Vladimir Krsljanin spoke and a delegation of the protest delivered the text of the Demands.

SLOBODA/FREEDOM ASSOCIATION

AND CITIZENS GATHERED AT THE PEOPLE’S RALLY

ON VIDOVDAN 2004 IN BELGRADE

addresses the state organs of the Republic of Serbia

and of the State Community Serbia and Montenegro with the following

D E M A N D S

1.     To send immediately to the UN Security Council a request to order the illegal Hague Tribunal the immediate release of President Slobodan Milosevic for medical treatment, recovery and adequate preparations for the second phase of the struggle for truth about our people and to issue the appropriate state guarantees to that end.

2.     Due to unconstitutionality and illegality of the arrest, kidnapping, extradition and detention of President Milosevic, requiring that the proceedings against him must be abolished, to address the appropriate request to the UN Security Council and the Hague Tribunal.

3.     To cease immediately the persecution of President Milosevic, his family and co-fighters, as well as of all fighters for freedom, against terrorism and NATO aggression.

4.     To ban the extradition of our citizens to the Hague Tribunal.

5.     To send to the UN Security Council a comprehensive and well documented request, which would point the unacceptable bias and blatant violations of human rights and principles of fair trial by the Hague Tribunal and demand its abolishment, release of all the detainees and sending of their cases to the national courts.

6.     To abolish the unconstitutional law on cooperation with the Hague Tribunal.

7.     To secure all legal, financial and other assistance by the state to its citizens, as long as they are under the rule of the illegal Hague Tribunal, in proportion to the importance of their cases for the future of the nation.

8.     To launch criminal proceedings against all responsible for the kidnapping of President Milosevic.

9.     То secure the direct TV translation of the Hague process against President Milosevic by the Serbian state TV, as long as that process will last.

10. To continue all the proceeding against NATO and its leaders responsible for the severest crimes committed in the aggression against Yugoslavia.