From IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT, NO. 166, August 22, 2000

FILIPOVIC UPDATE: Miroslav Filipovic remains at the Nis military hospital. His health remains poor. Visit The Filipovic File at http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl5?balkans_filipovic_index.html Please make a donation towards supporting his family. Send a cheque or postal order to IWPR (Filipovic Fund), 33 Islington High Street, London N19LH

COMMENT: IMPRISONED BY THE TRUTH  

Father Sava, the "Internet monk" and renowned moderate on Kosovo's Serbian National Council, writes exclusively to IWPR with his comments on the seven-year prison sentence handed down to Kraljevo journalist Miroslav Filipovic.

By Father Sava in Kosovo

The case of journalist Miroslav Filipovic, sentenced by the grace of God  before a military court in Nis, is only one example in these troubled times  of the blatant and shameless state repression directed against the free  media and those journalists who try to defeat lies and injustice with truth.
Miroslav Filipovic's sin and guilt lie in his efforts to fulfil his  professional and journalistic duty, in his attempt above all to speak aloud  on those difficult truths. Truths which should awaken the sleeping  conscience of the Serbian nation, and especially her indifferent  intelligentsia.
The regime's reaction was cruel and without compromise. Miroslav Filipovic  was led before a military court, branded a "traitor" and imprisoned without  his guilt being clearly proven. Genuine journalism is sufficient reason in  today's Serbia for one to be declared a foreign agent and an enemy of the  state. Everything that fails to fit the narrow moulds of the narrow-minded,  everything that fails to curry favour with the powers that be, represents a  reactionary and tragic conspiracy against "the only free state in Europe."

Why does the regime fear the truth and the free media so much?

Precisely because it is independent and professional journalism which  exposes the crimes of the corrupt and irresponsible holders of power. There  are no taboo topics for a conscientious and responsible journalist, only a  duty towards the truth and the readers. Readers who need not only to be  informed about events, but to be provoked into making sacrifices and  fighting with greater resolve for that truth. 

Miroslav Filipovic is just such a journalist. His reports are not only  objective and professional, but also provocative in a positive sense and  represent a challenge to the public to take a more resolute stand towards  the controversial issues of our every day life.

His reports are not sensationalist, but address serious problems, for which  we all shoulder some responsibility, if only through our silence and  passivity. These years have seen way to many events about which the final word has yet  to be spoken. And that will take not months, but years of deep  reconsideration, repentance and change of heart by the entire nation. While Miroslav sits in prison, an ill man, writing his personal testimony on  the profound injustice of a regime which tries to imprison the free word in  Serbia, it is shocking that the public all to easily forget those who  confirm their own words at great personal risk and suffering.

Many journalistic colleagues and human rights activists have fallen silent  much too quickly while the painful drama of Filipovic and his family unfolds  before them.

 It is all too easily forgotten that the prison housing Miroslav Filipovic is  not just in Nis. It is the prison in every town across humiliated Serbia, a  country transformed into a national dungeon, where thought, spirit and  conscience are locked away by the frenzied personal ambition of a suicidal  ruling couple.   
These inarticulate words are testimony to my sincere feelings and solidarity  with a man who has invested not only his journalistic talent and courage,  but also his life and health to the future of a democratic and free Serbia.

Father Sava is a member of the Serbian National Council, whose reports have  highlighted the existence of moderate voices among the Serbian community in  Kosovo.

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