The Free Citizens Movement (PSG) in Serbia today demanded the immediate dismissal of the Minister of State Administration and Local Self-Government, Snezhana Paunović, because of the hate speech in a chauvinist statement that she would ethnically cleanse Kosovo of Albanians in 1998, assessing that this was a conscious advocacy of ethnic persecution.

Declaring that her explanation of later that she meant deporting people to their “country of origin” confirms that this was not a sloppy wording, the PSG stressed in a statement that they are also concerned by her statements in which Albanians are portrayed as inferior beings in a racist way, reports Telegrafi.

PSG emphasizes that a person who justifies the deportation of people only because of their nationality cannot be a member of the Serbian Government, and that it is particularly dangerous that such messages come from the Minister of State Administration and Local Self-Government, which must guarantee the equality of all citizens before state institutions and respect for the Constitution and the law.

“The minister’s statement also raises a serious issue of possible criminal liability in accordance with Article 317 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits the incitement of national, racial and religious hatred and intolerance”, PSG assesses, waiting for the competent public prosecutor’s office to investigate whether her publicly expressed positions contain elements of that criminal offense.
According to the PSG, with such statements, Snezhana Paunović is directly harming the interests of Serbia and the position of the Serbs in Kosovo, because she is giving the strongest possible argument to all those who present Serbia as a state that has not separated from the politics of the 90s.

If Prime Minister Gjuro Macut does not propose the dismissal of Snezhana Paunović, the PSG warns that this will be another confirmation that the current government is a political continuation and based on the value of Slobodan Milosevic’s government from the darkest decade in Serbia’s recent history, and that there is still no willingness to make a clear departure from the politics of hatred, nationalism and wars.

Minister Snezhana Paunovic stated, during an interview in Kurir, that “if she had been in Slobodan Milosevic’s place, she would have ethnically cleansed Kosovo in 1998”, which, she said, it is “the toughest qualification she has ever done in her life”

Source: prizrenpost