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Hans Holthuis
August 26, 2003 Registrar, His Honour Judge
Theodor Meron, President, The Honourable Judges
Trial Chamber III ICTY, The Hague,
Netherlands RE: Slobodan
Milosevic
Illegal Prohibition of Visits and Communication With The
Press The International
Committee For The Defense of Slobodan Milosevic protests the illegal and
unjustified prohibition of visits to Slobodan Milosevic by members of the
Socialist Party of Serbia and the Sloboda (Freedom) Association, a
non-government organization dedicated to achieving his rightful
freedom. The order prohibiting
visits is allegedly based on a violation of the newly introduced rule
prohibiting communication to the media of statements made by a detainee during
visits, a rule which is both illegal and unjustified and the sole purpose of
which is to silence the voice of an innocent man, a political prisoner, held
hostage by the “judicial” arm of NATO. The British House of
Lords has stated in Regina v Ex Parte Sims and O’Brien that the
right of prisoners to communicate with the media is essential to prevent
miscarriages of justice. The prohibition of such communication is a fundamental
violation of the presumption of innocence set out in the Statute of the
Tribunal. The blanket
prohibition of personal visits is also a flagrant violation of Article 10 of the
European Convention For The Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,
of Rule 92 of the UN Standard Minimum Rules For The Treatment of Prisoners,
Principle 15 of the UN Principles of Detention and the Tribunal Rules of
Detention themselves. The Tribunal is
unable to demonstrate any need for this action in terms of the security or good
order of the UN Detention Unit or under any other legitimate rationale.
Therefore, the question arises; what is the real purpose of the order of
prohibition? There can be only one answer; to silence the voice of an innocent
man in order to prevent the embarrassment of the NATO countries who are his
political enemies and the enemies of the Serbian people and in order to suppress
the truth about the war crimes committed by NATO in
Yugoslavia. The actions of the
Tribunal follow the issuance of arrest warrants by the present Belgrade regime
against his wife and son which have the sole objective of preventing them from
visiting him in an attempt to isolate him and wear him down psychologically. In
this, neither NATO nor the Tribunal will succeed. The ICDSM demands
that the order prohibiting visits to Slobodan Milosevic be rescinded forthwith
along with the “rule” prohibiting communication with the news
media. Prof. Velko
Valkanov, Co-Chair, ICDSM, Christopher Black,
Toronto Prof. Mikhail Kuznetzov, Moscow Maitre
Jacques Verges, Paris,
For The Legal Committee, ICDSM
YOUR HELP The work for the defense of Slobodan Milosevic totally depends on your donations. For more details, see: http://www.sloboda.org.yu/finappeal.htm
Send a check to our address: SLOBODA Rajiceva 16, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, Yugoslavia
or transfer your donation to our account using the instructions at: http://www.sloboda.org.yu/pomocdet.htm
SLOBODA urgently needs your donation.
Please find the detailed instructions at: http://www.sloboda.org.yu/pomoc.htm To join or help this struggle, visit:
http://www.sloboda.org.yu/ (Sloboda/Freedom association) http://www.icdsm.org/ (the international committee to defend Slobodan Milosevic) http://www.free-slobo.de/ (German section of ICDSM) http://www.icdsmireland.org/ (ICDSM Ireland) http://www.wpc-in.org/ (world peace council) http://www.geocities.com/b_antinato/ (Balkan antiNATO center) |
