Dear friends:

After a long time, our network is today working again. Some of you are receiving our information for the first time; if you don't want it (we have your e-mail address from Ulcinj) or you prefer the Spanish version, please tell us. This text was sent by the "Women's Center" in Belgrade, you can find the same text attached. In the next e-mails you will read the appeals made in the 8th International Meeting of Women's Solidarity Network against war (Ulcinj). You can also read some of them in our WEB page http://wib.matriz.net

In sisterhood,
Yolanda (Women in Black Network - Spain)

POLICE RAID ON STUDENT PROTEST IN BELGRADE

Report from the Ad Hoc Coalition for the Women's Political Rights

Dear friends,

Yesterday it was 9th of November, in some places also known as the International Day Against Fascism and Anti-Semitism. The Serbian parliament had a session in which the opposition parties submitted a demand for new elections. Therefore, for that day Belgrade students organisations, under the title "Protest" (about 8 organizations), announced the protest march at 1 pm, while the opposition political parties gathered in "Alliance for Changes" announced their protest at 3 pm.

Feminists, from various NGO-s, organized around the Ad Hoc Coalition for Women's Political Rights. We chose this political occasion to print 6.000 leaflets, and distribute them on the streets of Belgrade. The leaflets state our basic demand for involvement in the decision making processes.

Despite the constant rain and strong wind all day yesterday, several thousand students gathered at the students' protest. We were also there - seven activists from the Ad Hoc Coalition - to give our support to students, to monitor the protest and distribute our leaflets. In their march the students walked by the faculty buildings in the center of the town: Technology, Engineering, Law... screaming "Get Out" Õ demanding symbolical liberation of the Belgrade University.

At one moment when we turned onto a rather narrow street, the police showed up from the front side and started to beat randomly... so everyone started to run. It turned the crowd into a panic. It was a fearful stampede with people pushing, screaming and falling. Only ten minutes later the brutal and severe police attack started again. Just when the students and citizens somehow exceeded their fearful panic and continued to walk, on the wide street in the front of the Yugoslav parliament, police forces started to push from the back. Again, running, wounds, anger and panic production.

In the evening the feminists from the Ad Hoc Coalition met again. We noted:

• one thousand leaflets were distributed
• three activists were hurt in stampede
• all of us felt at moments very bad, because of the Serbian political
situation, and because some students were shouting to the police "Go to Kosovo" and "You are Ustashes" (Ustashes were Croat soldiers supporting German nazis in the Second World War) and in this way reproducing hatred and the "enemy'.
• hundreds of students were exposed to fear and panic - a very well known violation of human rights in fascist regimes: violation of human right to life without fear.

The independent media in the evening reported that more than 50 students were wounded, some of them badly, but none of them went to the official hospital. On the regime's media there was not a single word about the protest and beating, only 10 minutes of hate speech about "Protest students" how they are paid by NATO etc.

As well, citizens that gathered at 3 pm for the opposition march were blocked by the police and were not allowed to walk the streets as planned.

Also, more than 30 buses with citizens from different towns in Serbia were prevented from reaching Belgrade and joining the demonstrations. Police stopped them with the explanation that buses were not technically OK, and that "buses with protesters pollute the environment with exhaust gas"!

Feminists from the Ad Hoc Coalition feel that at the moment on one side, the regime is ready to do anything to protesters: so shoot to beat to imprison ... since the police on the streets are those "specialists" who practised torturing Albanian citizens in Kosovo in the last ten years. On the other hand the regime knows that international public is monitoring Belgrade, waiting to get "Him" for Den Haag Tribunal. The regime is also aware that many people are against them and as a result find low intensity torturing more efficient, such as: stopping buses; "only" beating and not imprisoning; making obstacles in every way for independent media, for example creating construction on places where protesters meet... etc

Ad Hoc Coalition for Women's Political Rights
Belgrade, 10 November, 1999

WOMEN IN BLACK

Women In Black New York stand in silent vigil to protest war, rape as a tool of war, ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses all over the world. We are silent because mere words cannot express the tragedy that wars and hatred bring. We refuse to add to the cacophony of empty statements that are spoken with the best intentions yet may be erased or go unheard under the sound of a passing ambulance or a bomb exploding nearby.

Our silence is visible. We invite women to stand with us, reflect about themselves and women who have been raped, tortured or killed in concentration camps, women who have disappeared, whose loved ones have disappeared or have been killed, whose homes have been demolished. We wear black as a symbol to mourn for all victims of war, to mourn the destruction of people, nature and the fabric of life.

Women in Black is an international peace network. Women in Black is not an organization, but a means of mobilization and a formula for action. Women in Black vigils were started in Israel in 1988 by women protesting against Israel³s Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Women in Black has developed in the Italy, Spain, United States, England, Azerbaijan and in FR Yugoslavia, where women in Belgrade have stood in weekly vigils since 1991 to protest war and the Serbian regime³s policies of nationalist aggression. Women in Black New York have been standing in solidarity with the women of Belgrade since 1993.

We stand in silent vigil in front of the New York Public Library at 5th Avenue and 41st Street the last Wednesday of every month from 5:30 Õ 6:30. Come join us.

For information, please visit our website at http://balkansnet.org/women
Tel: Indira at 212 560-0905.
E-mail: 074182@newschool.edu to get on our mailing list.
Donations may be sent to P.O. Box 20554, New York, NY 10021, and should be made payable to RACCOON, Inc., with WIB in the memo line.
See also http://wib.matriz.net.