Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is "cleansing" Serbian universities of government critics and independent academics, Human Rights Watch charges in a new report "Deepening Authoritarianism in Serbia: The Purge of the Universities".
"The government is directly assaulting the autonomy of Serbia's academic institutions," said Human Rights Watch academic freedom specialist Joseph Saunders. "This is part of a broader effort to shut down dissent, autonomous inquiry, and free expression in Serbia."
In May 1998, the Serbian parliament passed a law that gave the government direct control over key university personnel and mandated that all professors and teaching staff sign new "contracts." The contract requirement, imposed regardless of existing contracts and tenure protections, was seen by many professors as an oath of loyalty to the Milosevic regime. Over the past seven months, leaders of the ruling parties have put their political allies in charge of the campuses_at the University of Belgrade, the country's premiere university, nearly forty high-ranking politicians and party leaders were given administrative or governing board positions_and the government appointees have suspended or fired dozens of the most respected academics in Serbia.
In its report, Human Rights Watch calls on the Yugoslav government to repeal the law on universities and institute safeguards for academic freedom. The organization also calls on the international community not to tolerate restrictions on free expression in Serbia when negotiating over Kosovo.
"The university purge shows that repression by the Milosevic government is not limited to ethnic minorities but includes anyone who speaks out or opposes the government," said Saunders.
On Friday, the Yugoslav government denied visas to members of a delegation of internationally prominent academics, including Nobel Prize-winning scientist John Polanyi. The group had intended to travel to Belgrade to meet with embattled Serbian colleagues and to be on hand for release of the new report. Other members of the planned delegation included Stanford University philosopher and literary scholar Richard Rorty, Princeton University physicist Sam Treiman, and New School University President Jonathan F. Fanton.
Members of the press can obtain copies of the report by contacting Skye Donald at the New York Offices of Human Rights Watch: (212) 216-1832. The full text of the report is available on-line, accessible via the Human Rights Watch website at: https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/serbia/
For Further Information:
In New York, Joseph Saunders: +(1-212) 216-1207
